


Firstborn Sons

by Tickle2Kill (CrownedIahos)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dementor's Kiss should be a band name, F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-War, cross-posted from ffnet, disregards DH epilogue, journalist!Hermione, musically influenced and inspired, previously completed work, rockstar!Draco, slightly au world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-23 12:37:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 38
Words: 49,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrownedIahos/pseuds/Tickle2Kill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has been nearly six years since the war. Hermione Granger, the star journalist at the Daily Prophet, writes about the truths of that war that some people don't want to face. But the war is long over, the people want more...and the Dark Mark on Firstborn Sons frontman Issac Turin's wrist is a hot topic. What is the seductive blond singer really hiding in plain sight?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Assignment

**Author's Note:**

> Product of angst and playing Guitar Hero after watching HBP. 10/10 would recommend. All lyrics to both Firstborn Sons albums are my own and their full versions, as well as my own original lyrics and poems, are available on request or on my side tumblr: tickle2killlyrics.tumblr.com
> 
> You can also drop me a line on my [ Tumblr. ](http://tickle2kill.tumblr.com/ask)

The war was over.

Everyone had learned to go on with their lives in the best way they knew how. Jobs were taken and education resumed, flooding the offices and schools with eager patrons of reconstruction. Most of the known Death Eaters were behind new and improved Azkaban walls, the suspected ones couldn't catch a wink of sleep at night. The sons and daughters of enemies were being braided together by a relieved society, hoping forced integration would erase the stigma that caused the war in the first place.

Although she wouldn't tell anyone, not even Harry, Hermione Granger doubted this tactic would work any better. Sooner or later a war would break out, most likely worse than the last because everyone could see where each side went wrong. She had learned enough about the ways of humans at the Office to see that.

Twenty-three and successful, Hermione worked under an alias as a journalist at the Daily Prophet, her first order of business being her systematic uprooting of one Rita Skeeter. The editor didn't feel too bad about letting the hag go, mostly for the fact that Hermione brought with her unlimited access to Harry Potter and the entire Order of the Phoenix. The cherry on top being her in-depth investigations into the most shady parts of the conflict and its participants. The vultures in the media couldn't wait for her articles about the war, especially since each revealed a little more about the true nature of the rift and the reason good conquered evil.

Her quill couldn't write fast enough to slake the slavering masses' hunger. There was some pride in the thought that she had so many people desiring her work.

"Ah, the dynamo. Granger, come in." her boss, Benson Coulder, waved her into his office, setting his cup of coffee on his desk as memos flew about his head. "I hear you've a special report on Mister Potter, is that true?" His eyes were sharp like a hawk's and set back beneath his bushy grey eyebrows, giving him a stern look despite his grin.

"Harry agreed to let me cover his wedding to Ginny come next month, I'll be able to take pictures and spread the good cheer." She hoped Ron wouldn't drink all the Firewhisky and get wasted like at Harry's last birthday. She'd have to make sure Peter, her cameraman, didn't take any unflattering shots.

"Cheer? The war's nearly six years in the dirt, Granger, no one cares anymore. Your appeal was your access to war criminals, heroes and details, not smiling couples and happy endings. I want something new, fresh," Benson stood and corralled his memos into a manageable pile. "Something dark."

'But sir, I thought you wanted to follow Harry and the rebuilding of London?" She had five reports waiting for the presses that she'd spent months on, she couldn't fathom letting all that gather dust.

"I do, but the public is growing weary of the same old coverage. It's always updates on court proceedings and 'A Look Back'. We can't keep shovelling shit hoping to find a nugget of gold." Benson sighed and ran a thick hand through his thinning hair. He looked tired and desperate. "There's a new band in town."

Hermione heard the mission before it even crossed his lips and she shook her head. "I'm not covering some druggie band again. It took four months of sitting in on trials and trips to Azkaban to earn my credibility back. White Teeth was a false lead and an even falser story."

"We all remember, Granger. But this is genuine. Firstborn Sons is selling out wherever they go and they've got a hunk for a lead vocalist who writes all the lyrics to their songs."

"How is this fresh? Why would people care about a stupid band?"

"Because the lead singer always performs shirtless."

Rolling her eyes and standing, Hermione was prepared to stomp out. "This is rubbish. Why would that be news?"

"Because he's got a Dark Mark on his left forearm, and his lyrics describe the Death Eaters and the Dark Lord...from the inside."

Hermione stood stock still for a moment to process, then bit her lip. "What's the name of the band?"

"Firstborn Sons." Benson replied, smiling.

"How do we know the Mark isn't forged?" she asked, trying to think of every angle.

"You'll have to find that out on your own. They're playing at the Indigo Palace tonight."

"White Teeth played there...I don't like the smell of this, Ben." she muttered, frowning.

"Every band that wants to follow in Weird Sisters' footsteps plays there. Even Celestia has done a show or two."

"It just feels too convenient." Hermione sighed. "Why would a Death Eater with the Mark in full view sing revealing songs about the man some still think is coming back from the dead?"

"That's why I'm assigning you. No one in this office could break a story like this. You've got to get in there and weed out the lies from the truth. I want a front page shocker for the books by the end of the month. I'm counting on you, Granger."


	2. The Palace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione gets in the field and down to business.

The Indigo Palace was crowded every night, but tonight seemed like a caricature of too-many-bees-in-a-jar.

Hermione had dressed appropriately for the sweltering residual heat from the summer sun in faded jean shorts, a dark tank top and wedge heels. She had even pulled her hair up to the top of her head in an attempt to keep it off her neck. The concrete under her feet gave off enough heat to make her think the sun was under the earth. And still she stood in line, shifting from foot to foot, watching people excitedly chatter about Issac Turin, the lead singer of Firstborn Sons.

All her split second research on Turin had nothing on the gossip-tongues of his fans. She learned in less than twenty minutes that he had almost gotten married to a pureblood woman who he wouldn't name, was the son of a well-known Death Eater that he again would not name, had seen untold numbers of revels before the fall of the Dark Lord and had even been involved in the death of a very prominent member of the Light.

Hermione had set her mind to working out what each thing meant to Turin as a whole and was desperately trying not to remember all the people who had died. She had wanted someone to accompany her but no one had been available and even Peter, her cameraman, had had to attend some meeting with his daughter's teacher. The crowd made her feel uncomfortable and they all were shouting and cheering in excitement.

Luckily she had planned ahead and arrived perhaps too early, but when the doorman finally opened up, she was shoved and herded inside first with all the yelping masses behind her.

The Indigo Palace was made up of various shades of blue and the way the lights drifted over the dance floor reminded Hermione of the ocean. They were all the little fishes, granting the atmosphere life. She was thirsty and wanted to find a seat, but it was obvious if she was going to experience the band, she would have to press herself against the stage and hope no enthusiastic fan ripped her off.

There was a technician on the stage flicking his wand and she could tell he was setting the scene as he tested the microphone and the instruments, then gave a double thumbs-ups to the crowd and left the stage to cheers.

Jorge, the owner of the club, stepped up to the mic with a grin. "It is my pleasure to introduce the best damn band you'll ever see, Firstborn Sons!" and he vanished on the spot as the lights dimmed.

Being that she was so near to the stage, Hermione could hear the band moving into place and their voices as they chuckled about something. As she tried to figure out what they had said, the lights went up in their cool blue haze and Issac Turin grabbed the mic. The guitar played a deep thrumming and the drums pulled and beat, then rumbled in a kind of macabre heart beat. Issac didn't look very happy as he stood there, his blond head bowed in seeming reverence, his icy grey eyes lingering on the floor. Hermione supposed this wasn't what he wanted to be doing, but then he rose his mouth to the microphone and closed his eyes.

"It seemed like a good idea then, how can you resist the altar, we sink softly and just when, the deluge begins to falter, our faith leads us to the surface, it's only a matter of time, before the rain will wash our wrists and reveal the mark for all to find."

His voice was smooth like silk and so full with emotion that it made it hard to stand for too long. He raised his hand slowly above his head so they could all see the mark on his left forearm and she stared in wonder as he flicked his eyes open and growled into their ears.

"Sacrificial hearts, they beat, they bleed, falling for you, falling apart, they flutter, they need, a little more love, a little less pain, a little more faith, more than a name. Sacrificial hearts, sacrificial hearts, they beat, they bleed."

While his voice stopped their hearts, the drums made them beat to the words, and Hermione felt the crowd stomping in a thump-thump-thumpthumpthump and heard them singing along. This didn't feel anything like White Teeth. This felt so real and involved. Her skepticism was fleeing in the sound of his whispers. She was trying so hard to be objective and professional, but she couldn't deny the snake-like way Issac writhed as he sang into the air above him. His body was muscled, but not overly so and pale like porcelain. Part of her thought of a vampire, but she cast that thought out as soon as it formed.

The atmosphere lulled as the song ended and the crowd cheered. She followed suit and couldn't help it. The next song was slower and less of a message anthem like the last. Issac had picked up a violin and played the opening strains with all the airs of a mourning chorus, stirring up memories Hermione would rather forget. All the dead and gone fluttered back into her heart and then Issac began to sing once more.

"I was too much of a craven to save you, too caught up in reflections to gaze through, could I have stopped the pain if I tried, would I have still been to blame if you died." He looked down again, blinking many times as he muttered the next words in sorrow. "I'm so sorry, Maggie...I should have said something."

Either he was a magnificent actor or she had to begin believing his tales. The next verse dragged on in a painful cadence that sounded like a heart beat valiantly marching onward in exhaustion. Then the next and finally as the only woman in the band poured out a lilting aria, Issac hoarsely wept.

"The last thing I remember of your face, was the way it morphed when I asked your name. I'm so sorry, Maggie, I...I should have been something...I was nothing."

The crowd didn't cheer as he stepped away from the mic and as the music faded with another sorrowful aria, Hermione realized it was a moment of silence. Silence for Maggie.


	3. The Doubt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> White Teeth had been a lie, maybe Issac was, too.

Hermione was more than a little thirsty after the fifth song, but she steeled herself to sit through the rest of the concert, to watch everything. She wasn't the top reporter in the Daily Prophet for nothing. She had to observe everything, she had to notice the little things that most wouldn't spare a thought.

Issac paused as the drummer and the guitarist played thrumming low notes, obviously bridging the gap between the songs Eyes of Blood, the haunting Souls At Mass and whatever came next. Hermione hadn't really heard them before, but she was determined to memorize them for her own research. The female with the bass guitar smiled softly and pressed her lips against the microphone before her. She was shorter than Hermione and her hair was a brighter red than Ginny's, but her eyes were a false pale blue that gave her an undead look. She breathed out a throaty laugh and strummed on her black and red instrument.

"Hey, little darlings." the crowd cheered and she smiled wide. "If you're old, we need no introduction. If you're new, sit tight and listen up. I'm Aurora Pearl, I play this little red newt called Diamond." Her fingers flew across the strings like hummingbird wings and the sounds that it made sent chills down Hermione's spine. "Everybody put your hands together for my big brother, William Nessball on the drums." She craned her neck over her shoulder and her 'brother' beat out a quick marching tune with a smirk behind his shades. The crowd hollered and clapped, Hermione stumbled as they jostled her from the sides. "Next up we've got Mister Clockwork on the guitar, Carmen Dice!" Carmen flipped his guitar over his head and caught it, flinging out a quick humming trill before resuming the steady melody of the upcoming song. "And last, but most certainly not least...our own wordsmith, the cherub of this charade, Issac Turin!"

Hermione's focus drifted back to the icy orbs of the lead singer who nodded to the ear-splitting cheers as he seemed to gather them up and toss them back in earnest with mime-like gestures. He stalked back up to the mic and his eyes flicked about the crowd.

"Would you like to hear something new?" his voice was so familiar, but every time she thought deeply about it, something seemed to steal her attention.

The people behind her yelled and shouted in excitement, but she just stood there, trying to understand why he was so familiar. She didn't notice his eyes lingering on her or the frown that captured his face. When Hermione glanced back up, the band was driving back into their music. But the moment Issac opened his mouth and sang, "There are screams in the night.", she turned and made for the bar.

It took a lot of shoving and she was barked at a couple times, but she wouldn't be stopped.

"Don't you listen to them, little girl."

The bartender smiled at her distractedly and gave her a Firewhisky, moving off to bewitch a few drinks to fly over to the crowded tables on the other side of the club. Issac, if that was even his real name, was still belting out the lyrics in that mind-boggling way he did, trying to lure her back to the group...to the lie.

"Only once a month can they unleash what lingers in their hearts, this beast will be wild with hunger oh-so soon. Here comes the wolf, here comes the moon."

White Teeth had been the same and she had fallen for it just like everyone else. Lola Corey had been a fake singer with a magically enhanced voice, warbling like Celestia Warbeck to jamming tunes about her experiences as a Death Eater. It turned out she was a muggleborn from Scotland who hadn't even been in England while Voldemort had power. Hermione had been roped into the scandal because she had written a shining article about the 'depth and cunning perceptiveness' of the lyrics that were merely ripped from old headlines and mashed together to appear truthful.

She had had to trudge through a lot of shame and embarrassment to make up for the mistake she had made like everyone else...except she was the more public of the bunch.

"Here comes the wolf, here comes the moon."

Hermione felt she should make herself useful, but she wasn't sure where to go next. Perhaps she could speak to their manager? The bartender came back by and she waved him over.

"Can you point me to their manager?" she called over the loud music.

"You got a reason to talk to Darren?" he called back, his voice a deep rumble. She pulled out her Daily Prophet badge and he smirked. "He's the dark-haired pole by Jorge. Want another drink?"

Hermione shook her head and took off for the indicated man. She had to start acting like a reporter and less like an enamored fan. Issac was just like Lola and Hermione would have to gather the articles she already had ready at her flat to have enough bouy to weather her boss' disappointment. Benson wouldn't be happy, but she could live with that.

Darren was laughing about some comment the club owner had said when she stepped up, pasting on a kind smile as she held out her hand.

"Hello, sir, I'm Jean Paige with the Daily Prophet. Can I speak to you?"

He patted the shorter man on the shoulder and gave her his full attention. "Why not? Any publicity is good publicity, right?"

She offered a half-smile, but did not comment. Hermione didn't actually believe in that theory since the scandal. Any news is bad news was more like it. Darren cupped her elbow and started to lead her backstage.

"Issac thought someone would come eventually, but I always assumed it would be some pudgy old crab...not someone so beautiful."

He laid it on thick and she almost felt dirty when his eyes drifted over her form. "Thank you, sir." she ventured and he smirked in return.

The back rooms were colder and yet more comfortable than the club itself and she let Darren lead her to a waiting room with pretty purple flowers in a white vase. There were copies of Witches Weekly and On the Beat, the musical magazine for wizarding London on the table beside the vase and a couple of those never-warm cups the club was known for. Hermione watched as Darren gestured for her to sit.

"They've only got a couple more songs and I'll send them right over. Please," he smiled, "make yourself at home until then."

"Thank you, Mister...?"

"Just call me Darren, sweetheart, everybody does."

As he opened the white door to leave, she heard Aurora Pearl singing as Issac growled, "Indecisive. I'd give just about one more drink to corrupt you."


	4. The Chat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Most fans would kill to be backstage with the lead singer. Hermione just wants to kill the lies.

The glowing quality to the white walls and gentle ivory accents was slowly grating on her nerves, but she had waited through worse. Having a self-satisfied killer retelling his gruesome tales, watching as the judges covered their lips and yet knowing she had probably seen the horrors take place had happened too often. Sometimes being part of the "Golden Trio" made it difficult to empathize with people.

Faintly, though the closed door, she could hear as the last song faded off into nothing with Issac desperate cry of, "You were right."

There was wild applause, the kind that was so earnest it sent a chill up her spine and made the space behind her ears tingle. Hermione shook it off and began flipping through the Witches Weekly, her face curling into a grimace as the moving pictures invited her to buy freckle remover and no-hair serum. She knew a few people who had lost the hair on their heads because of the serum.

The band was walking by the other side of the door, she could tell because of their voices and the joyous success exuding through the walls. Aurora kicked a vase in the hall and it shattered, which caused her to laugh raucously. She heard Issac mutter something and then magic was used. Hermione supposed he had fixed the vase. Nessball, the drummer, leaned against the wall by the sound of his voice.

"She's sixteen, Issac...give her some slack." Sixteen?, Hermione thought appalled.

"There's a Jean Paige waiting for you, Turin. In that room." Darren must have seen the situation and went about diffusing it.

The whole group shifted and Hermione heard them resuming their path down the hall. There was a clap that sounded like perhaps Darren patting Issac on the shoulder, then he left as well. The door opened without any warning and the shirtless wonder that was Issac Turin stood silhouetted by the light in the hall.

"You're more shallow than I remember if that's how you pass the time." he stepped into the room and shut the door. The white of the walls made his pale skin stick out even more because it nearly matched. His grey eyes flicked all over her and back to her eyes. "Well, look at you all grown up."

Casting aside the magazine and bringing herself to her feet, Hermione held out her hand. "I'm Jean Paige from the Daily Prophet, Mister Turin." After he smoothly shook her proffered hand, she asked, "May I ask how you know me?"

"Oh, we go way back. Before the war was over." he snapped his fingers over one of the cups and it filled with liquid. He sipped some and sighed. "I don't expect you to remember. Gryffindors were always the thickest of the four."

Her pride rankled a little, she licked her lips under his watchful eyes and began her interview.

"I confess myself a little ignorant of your meteoric rise, Mister Turin. Could you perhaps recount it for me?" She had pulled her favorite quill and parchment out of her bag and set it to task. It wrote down everything she said and everything he said to the letter.

Issac took a seat on the same couch she was on and leaned back in a half-recline, his long legs at a off-guard angle. He threw one arm of the back of the couch and the other on his abdomen.

"Well, there was the year of Voldemort's fall, when every smart person in the world was either hiding or serving. I was one of the latter. I'm sure as Potter's pet you know all about servitude." She wanted to smack his mouth, but she continued in her professional vein. She would ask how he was so familiar with her later.

"So you served Voldemort, that would explain your Mark...but why would a follower of Voldemort have such ease in saying his name? I've interviewed many Death Eaters of varying importance to the Dark Lord and they all clung to a fear of his name. Why are you different?"

Issac scoffed. "Let's just say an old man once told me I wasn't a murderer and I doubted he knew my worth. But he was right about what he said and he believed fearing the name was as dangerous as fearing the man. So I say Voldemort until my heart no longer twinges in recognition."

Hermione kept her eyes on his and didn't see a speck of falsehood. She took a breath and began again. "So this old man is what made you see the error of your ways?"

Issac's pose changed and he seemed defensive. "No."

"Then what changed you?"

"Maggie."

"Is that story true, Mister Turin? Did Maggie really exist?" Hermione asked softly, watching her target with all the clarity of a hunter.

"Once. She doesn't anymore. I suspect that is the case for many people. They lived, you loved, they died. They fade into nothing like everything else that matters." He seemed to wake from a slumber and he smirked at her. "Next question."

She took a moment, then asked what had appeared obvious to her before but she hadn't thought of it deeply. "So if you were a follower and you participated in the heinous crimes Voldemort's servants committed, how are you not in Azkaban?"

"Money cures every ill if you've got enough of it, Miss Paige." he said her alias as though it most assuredly was.

"You seem to know me, Mister Turin. How is that?"

"Jean Paige of the Daily Prophet, right? The one with all access to Potter and his interesting home life. You don't fool anyone with eyes, Granger." The familiarity struck her again and she stared at him harshly, accusingly.

"What kind of glamour are you under? Who are you?" Part of her professional calmness fled and she stood. "Is that Mark even real or is that a glamour, too?"

Issac smiled with his eyes as he sat there staring at her. "No, the Mark's real. Here," his long pale fingers grabbed her wrist so suddenly she didn't fight back and he ran her fingers over the black. "Feel the heat? Feel the scorching fire that never stops? No glamour can recreate that. No spell can make it stop."

She was gazing back into his eyes and she felt the heat that wasn't his own biting into her own hand. With a cry, she jumped back out of his range.

"Who are you?" she asked again.

He was standing and he was speaking, but he wasn't answering her question. "You know they said the magic would die with the wizard...they said once Voldemort had fell for the last time that the pain would die as well." He stalked towards her and she stepped back. "Those healers, those Aurors, lied. He keeps on living through every lick of flame...he will never truly perish, he made sure of it. And every time I say his name it flares like an explosion of agony and I can't stand to let the pain fade...it's the only thing real anymore."

Hermione heard the distant sound of her quill scratching the parchment and could smell the firewhisky he had been drinking on his breath.

"Who are you?" she repeated, frightened of his intensity and the way he hunched his shoulders as he ranted.

"I'm the son of a serpent, the son of a black. I am the product of fortune and of blood. I am everything you are not and still I am nothing. I made you cry once, maybe twice...and it stayed with me every night as I went to sleep. I thought it was pride in success until Maggie's brown eyes stared at me and she wept as they raped her." Hermione felt sick. "And the horrifying thing wasn't her death...it was the fact that I was never sorry it happened. I was sorry I didn't make it easier for her by ending it all."

Issac turned and picked up his drink, taking some into his mouth and letting it linger before swallowing.

"I have a few more questions..."

"No. It's time you left, Granger. Come back tomorrow night...we're playing here again." and he swept past her to the door. She thought she saw a stuck-up boy from school for a second and then he was gone and so was the thought.


	5. The Question

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione asks for some advice.

That next morning, Hermione had contacted Harry and he had used his power as The-Boy-Who-Lived to allow her some distant access to the records at the Ministry. She felt a little bad about using him in such a way, but he had just chuckled and told her it was fine.

She was meeting the woman from the Ministry at a cafe in Diagon Alley, as she wanted some familiarity with the area. Being a reporter sometimes felt like being a spy and she could never be sure if her back was covered. Hermione felt a tad paranoid about her state of affairs.

Sitting at a table in front of Blaine's, the new restaurant that had taken Florean Fortescue's place after the war, was a mousy woman with big, round eyes and a stack of papers in her hands.

"Miss Triton?" Hermione asked, stepping up. "I'm..."

"I know who you are, Mister Potter told me. Come, come, sit. I'll tell you what I found." the woman wasn't nearly as mousy as she had appeared. Hermione did as she was bade.

"Any luck finding him?" she cast a silent muffliato and gave the woman her full attention.

"I'll start off by saying there is no one in the Ministry records by the name of Issac Turin. No birth certificate, no school records, no criminal record. By Ministry standards, he doesn't exist."

Hermione nodded, she had known as much herself. "Any connections to Death Eaters or Voldemort?" Miss Triton glanced away at the mention of the name, but steeled herself and spoke again.

"Vaguely. Nothing of consequence I suppose."

"Anything would be helpful, Miss Triton." Hermione didn't want to lose the only real lead she had. She couldn't write an article about how she felt concerning the truth behind Firstborn Sons.

"I don't usually go about giving this information away." she pursed her lips, sighed and splayed the papers out in some semblance of order. "I found the first connection about two years after the war had ended. Narcissa Malfoy opened an account to an I.T., most likely his initials, though he is not stated by name." she moved on to the next page. "He appears again later, three years later, buying multiple things back-to-back. A large sum of the money vanishes, but inexplicably returns by that year's end." Miss Triton glances up at Hermione with such a glare that she is worried. "It continues, really, until about a month ago. Then he stops again. But everything I've ever found with a connection to that name is a Malfoy. Perhaps you should check there."

"Thank you for this, Miss Triton." Hermione says, but the mousy woman had already stood, gathered her papers and vanished from the spot.

Malfoy?, Hermione asks herself later, at her flat as she changes clothes for the club. He's blond, grey-eyed, but the only Malfoy I know is Draco Malfoy. Wouldn't I have known it was him? Wouldn't everybody...with eyes?

A thought struck her and she paused in the act of zipping the frilly top over her bra. She checked herself once in the mirror and hurriedly Apparated.

The sea was in a mood when she arrived at Shell Cottage. Hermione knew she should have announced her arrival, but she was in a rush. The door came up before her and she knocked unobtrusively, hoping her kind appearance would smooth over the suddenness of her arrival. There were the customary noises of someone standing and crossing the room before Fleur came to stand in the doorway.

"'Ermione. What brings you 'ere?" Little Victoire was smiling her little shy smile at Fleur's hip.

"I need to speak with Bill for a just a moment, then I'll be out of your way."

"Oh, of course. Bill is in the study." she stepped out of the way and Hermione mussed Victoire's blond hair as she passed.

Bill, scribbling away as he examined something gold in his hand, glanced up distractedly as Hermione walked in. His study was covered with parchment and ink and artifacts. If she hadn't known his occupation, she would have assumed he was an archaeologist.

"Hey, sis, come on in." Suddenly his wand was in his hand and a mountain of papers shuffled themselves to the side and fluttered to the floor to reveal a stool. Bill's long hair flew about in the gush of wind and he raised a hand to calm it. "Something wrong?"

"Oh, no...just work. Look," she began, trying to consolidate her findings into something manageable. "I believe someone is using a glamour or something to hide their identity. Whenever I think I'm remembering who they are, I'm distracted like it's a Notice-Me-Not, but not to the extent that I don't notice they are there. It's more like the spell is aimed at their identity only. You can see them, hear them, smell them even, but you can't remember who they are. Does that sound familiar in any way?"

Bill's mouth worked a little, then he sighed. "Could be just one spell or it could be a grouping. Did you want to remove it?"

"I would like to." Hermione delicately avoided telling him the person in question might not want to.

"Well, for either case you could use that collapsing spell I taught you. It'll start at the base of the spell and crush the foundation, breaking whatever enchantment is there." Hermione nodded and stood to leave. "Wait a moment, what're you going to do with what I just said?"

"Write a fantastic article." and she left before she could be morally resolved to not do what she was so about to do.

It was hot again that night and she cast a cooling charm over herself as she stood in line. She had been a little later than last night, not more than ten minutes, but it had made a difference. A woman in front of her adjusted her low-cut top and Hermione glanced down at her own chest worriedly. She'd worn one of her better tops, but it was more or less a soft drape over her midsection and pretty oval-shaped fabric from the top of her ribs to her shoulders. Her arms and part of her sides were visible and though her breasts weren't on display like the other woman's, she was sure she was wearing too little.

Jorge, the club owner, stepped out and glanced about the crowd with his kind eyes and she thought for a moment that they had stopped on her.

"Miss Paige?" Hermione glanced up and realized that he was looking straight at her.

"Yes?" she responded, pulling herself free from the line.

"Turin wants you to have a nice seat, come along." and he took off back inside the place with less than a wink in preparation. Hermione jogged after him, both curious and with a feeling that she was being toyed with. She had never liked that feeling.


	6. The Show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione has a special seat for the show.

She had been abandoned by Jorge about twenty feet into the ocean-themed club and a pretty young guy with piercing brown eyes stepped up with a smile.

"Follow me, Miss Paige."

He led her to the section of tables up a small set of stairs, there were only about five, and the lighting was in the darker part of the ocean, but she could still see the stage with a vantage over everyone's heads. The brown-eyed guy smiled at her and took her drink order before leaving her alone in the pre-concert rumble.

The waiter came by with her drink and she thanked the man. The technician from last night was checking the instruments early tonight and he spent a little time putting the drums in a certain angle. Hermione watched him while she pondered the way she was going to go about removing Issac's glamour. She could just rush into it and ward the door to the room, forcing him by magic to be still and ripping the glamour to shreds with Bill's collapsing spell. Or she could be Hermione about it and try the less gung-ho option. He wasn't going to like it either way.

"Contemplating murder?" a voice whispered right into her ear and she jerked, looking over her shoulder and into cold, grey eyes.

"In a fashion." Hermione replied, scooting away.

"Ah, well, good to know it's premeditated. I like the fact that you thought of me." Issac slipped into the seat across from her and she steeled herself for getting answers.

"Are you going to tell me who you are?" she asked, lacing her fingers together on the table.

"Would you really want to know?" Before she could answer, he continued. "Say I'm responsible for something you can never really forget. Would you really want to know I got away without even a smack on the wrist?"

"Yes." Hermione leaned forward with narrowed eyes. "I know a lot more than you realize about the war now. I could pin you to the scene with your identity. The Death Eaters that were caught had loose tongues by the time for their trials."

"Am I meant to be threatened?" he laughed and she tried to ignore the urge to join him. "Sheriff Potter and his troupe of fools? What would they do to me to make me talk? Is it legal so long as Potter nods his head?"

She sat back, angry, and moved on. "I have other ways of finding out who you are."

"Everyone does. A flick there, a twirl here. It won't work, Granger. It never does." Issac stole her drink and sipped some before setting it back on the table gently.

"I'm not everyone, Turin."

"No. You are Hermione Granger, the smartest witch of her age." He seemed to be mocking her and she bit her lip to stop the childish insult she was about to say. "I suspect I'll be your little experiment. Poke and prod, then. I'm all for it."

He stood and smirked at her. "But if you're going to bombard me with spells, use this," and he poked her forehead. "not this." and he prodded right over her heart.

The people flooded in just as she went to speak and Issac smirked, drifting back into the darkness of the ocean around her.

Tonight the show began before the curtain raised and she heard what seemed like fire gushing out of something right before the lights flared and Firstborn Sons stood in decorated glory. Aurora was decked out in dark red leather, boots on her feet made her stand at least four inches taller and she had shined up Diamond a little. William and Carmen were both in a grey/black color military get-up, with the double-breasted jackets and polished black boots. Issac however, looked nothing like the pale man of last night.

He was shirtless as always, but his ribs were lined like black gills and his muscles were drawn with highlights in the same black color. When he shifted in the light it looked like scales that faded into his normal skin color by the time they reached the Mark. His blond hair was greased back with something dark at the roots and stood in a near mohawk in all its blond delicateness. His face was made-up to match his arm scales and his grey eyes stood out like beacons as he opened his mouth and spewed forth the fire she had heard earlier.

It was impressive magic. Hermione sat up and focused on the performance.

The crowd was so loud it nearly drowned out the music and then Issac began. "I'm the one you come to when the pressure is too much and you come loose, so I took up the mantle; a regular Atlas on display, but you lit that candle...couldn't stand the heat and you ran away."

He closed his eyes and the lights went down to a slight glow. Issac writhed like he had the other night, only this time the scales and the gills moved with him and he seemed to fly.

"I have the blood of a dragon, I spit fire when I speak of you." Hermione watched the crowd to see their reaction and they were all wide-eyed at the spectacle. She glanced back up to Issac and he seemed to stare straight through her as he spit fire again.

"All you can do is depend on me, to keep burning and burning. All you can become in me, is that burning, burning."

The show was much more intense this time, and when Aurora sang in that haunting way she did, Hermione was entranced. Then Issac paused between songs and smirked up at her position and she was ready to cast that collapsing spell all over again.

"This next one is called His Parade. I'm sure you all know our savior...put your hands together for him." Issac's eyes lingered for too long on her and Hermione shook her head. He laughed and William began a marching cadence, which Carmen and Aurora set their feet to and the crowd followed suit.

"Wasn't pride and favoritism the cause for our last division? Why do we resume our peace with fodder to cultivate the next despot in Potter? Don't we ever learn or are we too blind to see the making of a new tyrannical mind, if we continue to fill his head with him as our Lord instead..." Issac joined the march and for every third beat, they bowed. "We understand nothing on our feet, we only comprehend from our knees. Don't you ever let the dominance fade. Cast in your lot for his parade."

Carmen went into a solo that sounded like the salute for fallen soldiers and then he moved his fingers over the strings of his guitar so fast they burst into flame and he hiked up a crescendo until the scale hit the top and he kept it there until Issac stepped to the mic.

"Don't you ever let the dominance fade. Cast in your lot for his parade."

Screams invaded the air and smoke wafted upwards from the dying fires from Issac's mouth and Carmen's guitar. The band let the people cheer and Aurora gave Issac a one-armed hug with a girlish smile that betrayed her age for a moment and William smirked. They like their success, Hermione noticed, a lot.


	7. The Glamour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione gets a glimpse past the rockstar facade.

Issac came to bring her backstage after the show ended and the only thing remaining of his stage persona was the grease that kept his hair in a mohawk. He cupped her elbow and led her through the cool area and the back rooms.

"Be sure Potter knows I support him becoming nothing. It would better for everyone." he said as they passed the first room they'd spoken in.

"Oh, sure. It was at the top of my priorities." Hermione muttered, half-wanting to fetch her arm back from his grasp. Issac chuckled and it made her tingly in the wrongest of way.

He opened the door marked with the band's name and paused. "Will, do you mind? Aurora's in here."

Hermione peeked over Issac's shoulder and saw the drummer sniffing some type of powder up his nose. Aurora glanced at her 'brother' and sighed. "I'll go out for a walk." she brushed past them and Issac called out.

"You shouldn't go alone!" but the girl merely answered, "I'm always alone.", and vanished out the back door.

Hermione stood quietly and then turned around. "The first room is fine."

Issac was silent until the door to the white room closed. "He isn't always like that."

"You don't have to explain. It's fairly common in muggle bands that are shot into fame quickly."

"Great...we're a typical muggle band. Just what I wanted for Christmas." Hermione laughed despite herself and cleared her throat once she realized what she had done.

"How are they related?" she asked.

"He found me somewhere in London and she found him after she ran away from home. Carmen took us into his house and sometime during the night the Sons were born."

"Surely a Death Eater's first thought isn't singing?"

"Surely every Gryffindor's first thought isn't foolishness?" He rolled his eyes. "We're not all the same."

The flowers were freshly watered, the cups were different colors and the pillows on the couch had moved positions. When she turned to look back at Issac, he was right behind her.

"Why are you wearing this?" he asked her, breaking her personal space by running his hand up her chest. He stopped his hand on her sternum and she could feel his body heat through the cloth.

"I wasn't going to wear what I wore yesterday." she replied, stepping back.

"No complaints from me, Granger. You usually dress like an old lady...as far as I remember."

"You never really explained how you know me. Care to tell?" Hermione was more than a little tired of his teasing and the way he dangled his knowledge right in front of her, but the glamour made it impossible to pin him down.

"If you break the spell, maybe you'll find out. It'd take too much time to recount every detail of our...relationship." He watched her with those laughing eyes and she snapped.

"Look, I don't want to have to do this spell. All you have to do is remove the glamour."

The blond man opposite her opened his arms in invitation. "Do whatever you want."

Hermione brandished her wand and gave him one moment to change his mind, casting a silencing spell on the room, but he just waved her on so she began the collapsing spell. Bill's spell was more will-driven than word-driven and she pressed against the glamour until she found the foundation. It was twisted around Issac's spine like a gnarled tree and she slowed herself down to avoid injuring him by accident.

"What are you doing?" he asked her and he seemed confused.

"I'm working. Shut up for a moment, please."

"Hurry up, then. I don't think you mean it to feel like it feels."

Hermione put the split second thought out of her mind and continued to work around the base of the spell, carving a little niche between him and the magic. Once it was all separated, she could shove it off and it would collapse completely. Bill did this for certain wards in the vaults or on artifacts he was commissioned to rid of curses. It was very advanced and she could feel herself sweating from the effort.

With each tendril of the tree that she removed, it grew harder to remove them. But Hermione wasn't top of her class for nothing and she persevered past when she would usually stop.

"Just one more." she grunted and began to pry the thickest one off. Issac screamed and she was glad she had cast a silencing spell before they began. The glamour was pushing back at her and she had to focus her magic on simply withstanding it for a moment before she threw herself into the magic and the last tendril broke like a bone. Issac collapsed to the ground and Hermione did as well, taking a moment to catch her breath.

"It would have been easier if you had just..." but lips muffled whatever she was going to say and she tasted fire on her tongue.

Issac's body was pressed against hers on the floor and his hand were pulling at her hair. She wanted to say she didn't like it at all, but she knew it was a lie. He could sing and he could kiss, she felt completely lost as he moved to deepen the hold his mouth had on hers.

For a long moment, she was stunned and petrified in the kiss, then she remembered herself and pushed him away. "What in Merlin's name...?" she glanced up and the man with the mohawk and her lip gloss on his lips wasn't Issac Turin at all.

"Malfoy?" she whispered, astonished.

"I have my own name you know."

"Draco." she said, almost sure she was losing her mind.

"That must be the first time you've said my name without some form of disdain." he smirked at her. "How'd it taste?"

Her fist flew across the space between them and he reeled back in shock. Hermione found her feet and stumbled back with her hand on her mouth.

"You bastard!" she wiped the kiss from her skin with her wrist. "What is all this? Some call for attention?"

"You could call it that if you want. My father did before Potter put him away. They say the spell will die with the wizard...we already know I shouldn't hope for my father's death. It didn't help with the Mark."

"He cast the glamour?" Hermione was staring at Draco, but he was looking like Issac again and she frowned. "What are you doing?"

He returned her frown and she stepped forward. "Are you recasting it?"

He started to laugh and she could only just remember who she was staring at because she was forcing herself to. "My father wins again." Issac sighed. "Thanks for trying at least. We won't be here tomorrow. So don't come looking." he turned and left like he had the first night and Hermione stopped him.

"But I know you're Draco." she told him. "I can still tell it's you...underneath."

"And that's the only way you'll ever see me. Through Issac." he kissed her lips again and she was rooted to the spot as he left the room.


	8. The Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meeting the mother is always hard.

"Hermione, that's just terrible. If I'd known that's what you were going to do I wouldn't have told you anything."

"Bill, I don't need to be lectured. I know it wasn't the proper thing to do, but he let me do it." she fidgeted on the stool in his study as he chuckled.

"And his willingness makes it all alright? If you'd been any more reckless you could have killed someone...namely him." The artifact from her last visit was sitting on a shelf and a new, bronze one was suspended by leather straps. He had been tinkering with it just as she arrived.

"It needs to be removed." Hermione replied, trying to ignore the reprimand Bill had been tossing at her since she let him know the situation. Or part of it.

"Why?" he questioned, crossing his arms. "Is it harmful to his health? Is he in great pain from it? Does he want it removed?"

She paused and took a breath. "It's twisted around his spine, Bill. That has to be harmful to his well being, right? And he seemed disappointed that I couldn't break it."

"Disappointed, but not devastated. You said yourself he told you people had tried before. Perhaps even without his consent. It doesn't sound like he's leaning one way or the other. He's resigned to the fact that it's stuck. As to the spine, if it doesn't move or grip tightly, he would be fine. He's had this glamour for quite a while it seems and whoever put it on him wanted it to stay. This really isn't your problem."

"But he..."

"Roped you into a binding vow to help him break his awful curse?" The eldest Weasley stood. "He's a grown man, sis, and he's nothing to you aside from a story. Do what normal reporters do and write the article your boss wants to read. Issac Turin and his band can live their lives and you can live yours. I don't really see the issue here."

"He's a Death Eater and he was present for some of the greatest crimes in the war." Hermione ventured, unsure how to keep the topic alive if Bill was already closing it.

"Can you prove it?" he inquired, eyeing her solidly. "Can you take him into the courtrooms and really pin him to anything?"

"They'll only see the glamour. That's why I need your help. If I can remove the glamour, I can..."

"Reopen old wounds? Somethings should just be left alone. Persecuting a man who might have been somewhere, who might have held the wand seems fitting when you've lost a brother or a friend, but in the end you can never bring them back. It's been six years, Hermione. Don't you ever get tired of hearing the same stories over and over, reviving the murders and the torture? It's no way to live."

"Bill, I'm sorry." Now she felt terrible and she couldn't look him in the eye.

"Look, go home and rest. Let that great big brain of yours digest everything you've learned and when you wake up in the morning there will be a solution." He kissed her forehead. "Now get out before I have to throw you out."

She smiled.

She did sleep when she got home, but that didn't help anything when she woke. Her first thought was what she could do to make a trip to Azkaban and interview (or interrogate) Lucius Malfoy, but she didn't really have anything but a hunch she couldn't prove. Resigned to her inability to find the source of Draco's glamour and remove it, she gathered up her clothing and threw them in her muggle washing machine. Hermione had tinkered it so that it would run off the magic that she had inter-weaved into it, making it possible to do abnormally large loads and clean stains more effectively.

With that on track, she began to pick up her already clean living room and when that was finished she moved to the kitchen. But her flat was big enough to occupy her and she had finished everything, even the closets, by noon.

"What do I need?" she asked herself, glancing about the space she resided in. "Quills, ink, parchment, owl treats, floo powder...I should start a list."

She kept writing on a spare piece of parchment until she realized it had gone from a grocery list, to a one-sided conversation with herself. She wanted to break that spell. She had to break that spell. But why? It couldn't be for the satisfaction; Bill had been right about sitting through proceeding and proceeding listening to the same gruesome event over and over. And all she could accuse Draco of was circumstantial and irrelevant in court. Besides, he had already revealed to her that he had paid off the charges, though it didn't help his father.

Once her conscious caught up with her train of thought, Hermione shot up to her feet with her list in hand and left for Diagon Alley.

There were other places in Wizarding London to shop, but she frankly liked the joy of revisiting a place that introduced her as a child to all the wonder of being a witch. It never grew old and she knew the people and they knew her. She headed to Scibbs which had survived the war relatively unaffected, though it had changed its name from Scribbulus after the war and gained new management. The manager glanced up and smiled as she stepped in, gathering up a few stack of parchment before she had even made it fully into the store.

"The same quills, Miss Granger?" she asked, holding up nice shiny cases with a collection of at least twenty quills.

"Thank you, Madam. I'll take this as well," and she picked out three different colors of ink.

After she had paid for those items and more or less purchased the other things on her list, she took a slow stroll down Diagon Alley to clear her mind. It didn't help, of course, nothing she had done today had, but she stubbornly put one foot in front of the other in the hope.

"I can carry three bags, Madam, I don't need you to hover over me." a woman muttered angrily from around the corner and Hermione peeked to see who it was.

Ha, even the Fates agree with me!, she thought.

Standing with a scowl and the three bags she was miniaturizing, was none other than Narcissa Malfoy. Madam Malkin was nodding and walking back into the store, her face pinched and wringing her hands.

"My husband is in Azkaban, woman, not my magic!" The blond woman whispered to herself, taking a deep breath.

Hermione stepped up and Narcissa spun with wide eyes. Once they registered who stood before her, she scoffed and stood up straighter in her dark blue robes.

"Good day, Miss Granger. Out snooping for a story?"

"In a manner of speaking...but not in the way you think." Hermione licked her lips and went to speak, but Narcissa brushed past her at a brisk pace. "Wait, please!" she realized quickly how in shape Malfoy's mother was. "It's about your son!"

Narcissa stopped in her tracks and Hermione stepped back in front of her. "What about my son?"

"I know who he is. I broke the spell, well, I severed it partially, and I saw his face. I want to help."

"He's had enough help from the Ministry. His father's never coming back from Azkaban. Isn't that enough for you?" She looked as though she was on the verge of tears, but she held them back with all her strength.

"I don't want to put him away, Missus Malfoy. I want to help him remove it. He shouldn't have to live through someone else." Hermione wondered why she cared so much, but then again she had championed just about anything that was down and out. It was a complex, Ron had told her once, one that she couldn't fix with magic.

"You think I don't know that?" One solitary tear fell from the woman's blue eyes and she moved a step back. "Lucius ensured the glamour would never fall unless by his own hand. Draco and I have learned to live with that. Now, if you'll excuse me." Narcissa Malfoy began to walk away.

"He knows that I know, Missus Malfoy. He let me try."

"He lets everyone try. If there's even a sliver of a chance that someone will break it, he'll let them throw anything at him. Greater witches than you have tried and they all failed. Leave it be."

Hermione walked beside Narcissa and bit her lip. "I want to break it for him. Not for me or for money or for notoriety. But I can't unless you help me. He didn't tell me where he was going and he never really told me about the glamour. If you could just give me something, anything, I'll try to help your son."

"You'll kill him. Mudbloods can't be trusted."

"So, I'm a mudblood, that doesn't change the fact that your son is locked inside a lie. No one will ever know him, no one will ever see his real face, no one will ever fall in love with the son you gave birth to. Doesn't that seem a little more important than my blood?"

Narcissa glared at Hermione and pursed her lips. "If you hurt him..."

"You'll kill me and I'll let you. Just give me a chance."

Narcissa looked around hurriedly then nodded. "Fine."


	9. The Inhale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco gets a little surprise.

To be completely honest, he didn't even really know where they were or why they were playing here. And to that honesty, he would also say that he didn't care. Carmen and Darren booked the shows, he just threw himself out into the crowd with his voice.

He could be anyone or he could be no one and not a single soul would ever be able to tell the difference. He had been Draco Malfoy once, a pureblood brat with all the opportunities of the world before him and he had wanted to be everything.

Pansy hadn't been able to understand that just because he gave the persona of cold, distant, and aloof didn't mean he truly was. Purebloods prided themselves on the ability to appear unfazed by almost anything and he had been brought up with that exact mindset. But his mother had always known how to drop the curtain when they were inside the manor and even his father would crack a smile on good days and play with him.

Everything had been so simple before the Dark Lord returned. He had asked his father about the diary and the urgency to be rid of it once, to the answer that Lucius Malfoy couldn't be in the possession of something like that should Dumbledore's rats come snooping and because he didn't like the cloud that hung over his head from the 'dead' leader. Draco knew that was only part of the motivation and the downfall of Arthur Weasley had also been a source of inspiration.

Draco's father had wanted to let his son live without the choke collar that was Voldemort...but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. He supposed that no matter what his father had done to secure a Death Eater free future, he would have been locked in the power struggle of two wizards regardless. The end of Voldemort's reign was intrinsically linked with Harry Potter's life and decisions. Draco never did like having other people's idiocy choose his fate. He would take whatever came if he had made the call, but it took another kind of tolerance to let anyone else decide for him.

Aurora smashed another vase on the wall with her booted foot and he sighed.

"When the world is your property, little one, you can destroy what you like. Until then," he repaired it and sent a stinging hex at her butt.

"Ow! Issac!" she whined with her fiery hair flopping about her head. "It was an ugly vase, anyway."

"But it was this shit-hole's vase, not your own." he brushed his hair off his forehead. "I don't want to be your father, Rora." her little arms came about his waist and whatever depressing thought he had been thinking fled.

"But you already are, Issac. Carmen's unfeeling and Willy's only love is what goes up his nose." He squeezed her back and she smiled up at him. "Tonight's show will be better, won't it, Dad?"

Draco chuckled and nodded. "Of course, sweetheart." Aurora had this unwavering need to believe everything would get better with the next song and it hurt Draco to think of disabusing her of the habit.

"You're on in five." Darren said, sticking his head in the room.

"Right. Go tell the other two, we'll be out in a moment." Issac was what answered everyone who looked at him. Draco moved the lips like a puppeteer, but it was Issac they nodded and smiled at...even his darling Aurora.

"I'll get Diamond before Will knocks her over." She had left the room before he could say anything.

The mirror in the room reflected this face at him that looked unfamiliar upon first glance and he had to start applying the black grease to his roots to find the person he knew himself to be. He had always been able to find Draco in the dragon persona. It was only when he used magic to sprout leathery wings that he felt even a sliver of his former self. And though his audience supposed Issac was so passionate about his singing, it was really Draco underneath that shouted into the microphone.

He had hoped many times that someone out there would look twice, that someone would glance up and say, "But I remember you. I know who you really are.".

Draco was on the stage and he had already sung an entire song before he noticed where he was and what he was doing. William was beating out the lead-in to the next song and Draco gazed around the room in the glare of the spotlight to the rather large crowd. At first, all he could see was random faces and a sea of people he might have seen before but couldn't remember, then he saw her.

Dressed in a light blue dress and brushing her hair out of her face, Hermione Granger half-smiled at him and waved.

He nearly missed the start of the song because of shock. She wasn't supposed to find him again. She had failed to break the glamour and usually people forgot why they even tried and eventually that they had tried at all.

"Standing in the Great Hall, draped in silk and satin periwinkle, I was too young to fall,"

"Wasn't I?" Aurora whispered behind him.

Some of the people in the crowd knew the lyrics and were singing with him. He had always enjoyed that feeling, but his eyes caught sight of her again and he lost himself.

"Eyes like candy; I want to eat you up. Took years to make me fall head over heels in love. Chocolate-covered cherries, heart-shaped confectionery. I love your eyes like candy, I'm as sick as a boy can be."

As the song went on he saw her drift forward until she cut over to the left and tapped Darren on the forearm. He smiled at her in recognition and nodded at something she said with a smile. For a few seconds, Draco watched them walk away to the backstage and then he remembered he was in the middle of a show and it was bad form to not be fully invested in the performance.

His mind was backstage with the woman who had somehow remembered him, but the show must go on and he belted out his lyrics as he did every night, trying to lose himself in the stories he was retelling. Midway through Souls At Mass, which he had written when an Auror had asked him, "What was it like to worship a lunatic?", he glimpsed familiar eyes over the heads of his swaying crowd and he frowned.

Dark, cold, and altogether dangerous, the orbs across the room from Draco were speaking without words and he almost heard the voice in his head. "I've found you again, boy."

Leaving the stage was like escaping from a steel trap and he dodged past everyone to the room Darren had pointed out to him. He perhaps rushed into the room too quickly and stumbled. She was sitting on the couch staring at some banal painting that was slightly crooked on the brick red wall and missed the little drunk step. He had to get a hold of himself. It wasn't the first time his past had come calling. Draco swallowed and shut the door. She looked up and smiled again.

"Thought I forgot?" she questioned, bringing herself to her feet.

"I knew you had. They always do." he had never felt so nervous around a woman and part of him felt like a fool, but the other part was nervous because of the person in the crowd. "How did you find me?"

"Your mother. I happened to run into her when I was out shopping and we struck a deal."

"A deal?" Suddenly he felt sick and angry. "For money?"

"No. I made sure it wasn't for that." she continued when he opened his mouth. "If I harm you permanently, for example...you die, in my attempt to remove the glamour, she'll have all legal rights to kill me. It's a bit much, but we made sure we each knew the limits of the agreement."

"What are those limits?" he muttered, but Hermione just shook her head.

They were both quiet and he came forward once more. "Are you going to try again?" Now probably wasn't the best time, but he might as well ask. How long could he stall in this room?

"I..." she seemed embarrassed. "I rushed it a little last time. I should probably observe you for a little, to understand how the glamour works and where its rooted. You don't mind being a test subject, do you?"

His heart was beating so wildly he was surprised she hadn't heard it already. He wanted to kiss her again, just because it felt right to lay his lips on her soft ones. He could still taste the strawberry lip gloss from last time. What am I thinking about? Why am I thinking about it?, he mentally shook himself.

"If you don't mind being labelled a groupie." he smirked at her, anything to get away from his own thoughts.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" her smile was sinful and he crossed his arms over his chest.

"I've never had a lioness in my arsenal. It should be fun to watch you pace the cage when you realize you can't get free."

Hermione's warm little hand cupped his elbow and he was caught in the urge to shudder. It was from disgust, he tried to reason, not from anything else.

"You're the one in the cage, Draco." his name had never made him so wary in his entire life.


	10. The Calm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione is a terrified groupie on a broom.

She had packed what she hoped was enough to run about for a little while. The beaded bag was securely around her middle and she wore slightly warmer clothing for their first trip. Hermione couldn't help but to be reminded of the times out in the wilderness with the boys, except this was a concrete jungle.

Draco kept staring at her over his shoulder, his pale grey eyes very unnerving, as they flew over the city. Though they could have Apparated, Carmen liked to scope out their next show like a scout for war. He wanted to know what other types of business were around, if there were schools near or if office buildings faced the nightclub they were playing at the next night.

Hermione supposed it was a good tactic. Of course, the task of hopping on the back of a broom in the middle of the pitch black night and trusting mostly strangers to save her if she plummeted, was a challenge she couldn't quite face. In lieu of riding by herself, Draco had gloatingly offered the place in front of himself, suggestive eyebrows and all, but she had slipped behind him and chuckled as his face fell. His body was a welcome warmth from the chilly night air and she knew she had a death grip on his waist. She could feel his muscles beneath her hands. Hermione's overactive mind wasn't helping matters and she hoped they got to the place they were staying for the duration of the two shows soon.

They weren't staying in a hotel or a place she would expect an out of place person would go. Instead, they were landing atop the rather cluttered roof garden of a flat, amid so many flowers the scent of each combined made her dizzy. Draco lifted her off the broom by tossing his arm over her head and tugging her entire body by her shoulders. He held her there for a second and she had to clear her throat and deftly step sideways to release herself. She'd never been that close to Draco Malfoy in her entire life, sans the frantic kiss from few days ago, and the ease of it made her feel awkward.

"Philip won't like feeding us, so you'll have to go catch your fish somewhere else. Aurora, don't kick a single thing or I toss you out on your ear. There will be two rooms; one is mine, the other can be divided between you all. Hurry up and decide." Carmen walked away after his orders without a half-glance back to see the reaction. Hermione licked her lips so she wouldn't vocalize what her heart immediately said in response.

"Right. William, we'll take the couch." Aurora chuckled and Draco sighed.

"We're all taking the room. You girls can have the bed and we men will take the floor. Now, let's get inside before Philip comes looking for us."

Hermione followed the group in silence, for once just soaking in the situation around her.

She had somehow forgotten during all these things recently that she was meant to be writing an article about the band she was currently trailing like a lovesick puppy. Benson wouldn't be happy if that 'front page shocker' was never delivered. Hermione wasn't even sure if she could write what she had planned on.

Would Draco want her to go in depth about what happened their sixth year at Hogwarts or the part he played in the short but bloody reign of Voldemort? Would the band allow her to just soak up all this information and leave, taking with her the fate of their success?

Hermione knew better than anyone that a well-written article could ruin or make a band on the upswing. She'd seen it happen before her eyes. She wasn't sure if the public would embrace the knowledge that the son of one of the men serving a life sentence was singing into their children's ears. Then again, the climate of the world had changed significantly after Voldemort's death. Perhaps the daring and dangerous appeal Draco exuded when he performed would win over the people Hermione would have pegged for prudes and naysayers.

It was all unknown and she had the feeling she would have to just ride the wave to wherever it carried her. Let the article write itself.

Philip was a tall man with no hair atop his red splotched head and a pocket watch that he checked frantically as though time would flee the silver object if he wasn't staring at it. Draco was the only one to step forward and shake the man's hand, which Hermione saw was sweaty and wrinkled. Aurora made a gagging noise near-silently behind William and the drummer laughed.

"Sir, we should only be here for a couple days, we'll try not to impose." Draco sounded like his breeding; proper and respectful, with just a hint of pride. Purebloods were subtle creatures by nature, she had observed over the years.

"A second's too long, boy. If the missus hadn't made me swear to watch over Casey, I'd have let him starve by now. Him and his friends..." Philip glanced back at the them and Hermione attempted a kind smile. Casey?,she wondered, Is that Carmen's real name?

"Of course, sir. I can compensate you for the time if need be." Draco's eyes had turned some shade of blue that reminded Hermione of the lighter colored feathers of a mockingbird. It was an odd observation and it made her want to laugh. She shook her head; she desperately needed to sleep.

"Ten Galleons for each of you, including my useless son." The thick hand of the man turned palm upwards and Draco deftly placed the required amount of money in it. Like a greedy goblin, Philip's lips pulled back in a smile and he clapped Draco on the shoulder. "Maybe you should have been my son, Turin. you've got more sense."

"And more money." he added with a self-righteous smirk.

"That too. Well, you can take the usual room. I'll fetch some blankets." and the man was gone around the low kitchen island to a closet in the back of the flat.

"Thanks, Issac." Carmen came from the second room with downcast eyes. He was thankful for the assistance, Hermione could see, but he did not like having to lower himself to get it.

"He hates you for following what your mother said instead of what he said. If I have to pay a few Galleons so he'll let us be, then I will. You took us in Car, we owe you that much." The smirk was gone from his face and his eyes were back to the pale grey Hermione remembered.

Carmen smiled for the first time since Hermione had seen him and Aurora hugged his middle. "I'm hungry, Carmen." The guitarist sighed and nodded.

"Want to go eat before we settle in?"

Hermione didn't cast in her vote, but her stomach made sure it grumbled loudly. Draco laughed and soon they were all herding themselves back onto the roof and weaving through the garden to their brooms.

Slipping back behind Draco and wrapping her arms around his waist felt like putting on a glove and Hermione had to think of falling to her death to stop the blush from crawling up her cheeks.


	11. The Temple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another venue and far too many questions.

"So, are you an old girlfriend or something?" William asked her, scooping more Chicken Alfredo into his mouth.

Hermione attempted to swallow her forkful hurriedly so she wouldn't choke and tried to find the air to speak. Draco did so for her. She could practically hear the satisfaction in his voice.

"Yeah, we go way back. Love at first sight, I suppose." he laughed at his own words and downed his firewhisky.

"No!" she gasped. "Hate at first sight, you're remembering incorrectly. If I do recall, you called me a mudblood."

The icy grey eyes beside her wrinkled in the corners and their owner leaned forward. "But mud is made from earth and, if the stories are true, so are we. I was calling you sacred...poetically."

Carmen chuckled. "Your first song, Mud. Was she also the muse behind Candy?"

"Oh, positively. You wore periwinkle blue to the Yule Ball, didn't you, Jean?" The way he said her middle name sounded all sorts of dirty and she pursed her lips.

"I did, but I don't see why that matters."

"Do you even listen to my lyrics? That was the first time you had ever been beautiful to me...and you were more than I had ever imagined." He was staring into her eyes and he wasn't blinking, just piercing her with his grey orbs. She wasn't sure whether to run or meet the unspoken challenge. She couldn't be sure if she were the prey or the predator.

"It only took hours of potions to tame my hair and a Pepper-Up to get down the stairs." she whispered because speaking normally seemed taboo at the moment.

"One has to press hard to make a diamond out of coal. I'm just shamed that the witless Victor Krum saw the beauty in the rough before anyone. Pureblood eyes are supposed to be so much better...what lies I've been told." He blinked once, unwillingly, and she had never wanted to be closer to someone than at that moment. Hermione could almost taste the salt of his skin.

"When you lovebirds are done eye-fucking, could we blow this joint? I want to see Diona before we go back to Phil's." William had completely consumed his plate and was fidgeting in his seat.

Hermione pulled back as though from a broken spell and cast her eyes down to her food. She heard Draco shift in his seat and when she glanced sideways he was running his index finger over his lips distractedly.

"Diona?" she asked, gulping her tea to give herself a moment to process.

"'Cross the street. Dion's Temple, the club we're playing at. Diona's a good friend." Aurora was standing, Draco was settling the bill and Carmen was already at the door.

Hermione rushed to join them and realized they all moved like one entity with many arms. As William was helping Aurora into her thin jacket and Carmen was holding open the door, Draco tossed a couple Galleons into Aurora's outstretched hand and she caught it, pinching Carmen's side with her other hand. William ducked under the playful punch Carmen threw and Draco slipped in just as the three were walking out the door. He stood there with a half-smile on his face and she frowned.

"All those years at Hogwarts and I've never really seen you smile." He looked defensive and she grinned. "Who knew a little smile could make you less of a stuck-up git?"

He leaned toward her and their faces were inches apart. "Don't tell anyone. I've got this reputation to uphold."

Dion's Temple was a mix of Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Greek styles, with gold accents on white marble pillars and lounges where one could recline to be fed grapes and chocolates. Indulgence was the word that sprung to mind. Attendants rushed about in flowing white and red togas, smiling at their job and laughing with patrons as desert-themed music played in the background. William immediately broke away from the group and vanished into one of the archways to either side. A woman was leading a couple across the main hall to a restaurant-type lounge area with a smile when she caught sight of them.

"Oh, Carmen! I'll go get Diona." and she continued onward with the cheery couple.

Hermione felt out-of-place standing in the front door and moved to the side. Aurora followed her.

"Were you really Issac's girlfriend?" she murmured, her dark hazel eyes staring at her almost fearfully.

"No. We went to school together...and we were more enemies than friends. Issac has the tendency to rearrange history to suit him." Hermione couldn't understand why Draco Malfoy would want to make them have a...relationship, mostly because she thought he hated her as much as she used to hate him.

After the war and during the rebuilding, Hermione had taken stock of everything and had found that petty grievances meant little to nothing in the long run. People had chased her, harmed her and tried to kill her. When she weighed that against being called mudblood, it did not compare and she let the old hatred go. Now she didn't know what to do with Draco. She couldn't honestly say she hated him, it would be a lie, and she couldn't say she cared for him. Well, she couldn't say she cared beyond the removal of the glamour and that thought made her feel guilty. Surely, Draco was worth more than that.

"You say that," Aurora muttered, working her lips in what appeared to be worry. "but I don't believe you. Issac's always told us about this girl he used to know. He used to say he still loved her and then he'd get real quiet. Remembering her hurt him for some reason..."

Hermione looked into the girl's judging eyes and wondered more than once what Draco was getting at. "I never hurt him...at least not emotionally...I think."

"Well, poets usually work best off of pain and not all those songs are about Death Eaters and Voldemort." Aurora walked away without looking back and Hermione was struck with the oddest wave of shame. But she couldn't for the life of her figure out where it came from.

"My little crooning babies!" a woman's throaty voice announced, followed by the jingle of tiny little bells.

Hermione gazed upwards distractedly to see who she supposed was Diona. Tall, lean and wrapped in most expensive looking toga she'd ever seen, Diona stalked over to them with a wide grin on her face. Her high cheekbones were accented with blush and her eyes were lined with gold and black. There were beads in her short black hair. She hugged Carmen and Aurora, then snatched Draco into a hug that he wasn't prepared for.

"Two years it's been. I've missed you all, sweethearts." She gazed about and looked expectant. "Well, you want to see the new stage?"

Carmen's face was back into its stony businesslike attitude and he nodded for them. "If we could, Diona."

The owner took off excitedly without even noticing Hermione was there. Looking at Draco and the way he was lightly rubbing his ribs, she gathered that was probably for the best.

The new stage was equipped for more than just bands and singers. Circus acts, ballets, operas, plays and more could be accommodated on the huge stage. A muggle magic show was currently being set up by the look of the boxes and things. She had seen these things as a child before she had known magic was real. Hermione found a chance to avoid thinking over what Aurora had said and spoke up.

"Miss Diona?" she began and was promptly laughed at.

"Miss? Where did you find her, Issac? She's a doll." Diona hooked her arm with Hermione's and looked down at her with enthusiasm. She smelled like cinammon and cocoa. "What were you going to ask, my darling thing?"

"The stage looks prepared for a muggle magic show...I was just wondering why that would be."

Diona smiled and lowered her voice theatrically. "Well, witches can be so greedy with their magic. I've always thought muggles would appreciate the joy and beauty of it more than the magical. So my establishment is both muggle and wizard friendly. No segregation here!"

Hermione, though she wouldn't like to admit it, was awestruck. For the first time since she had begun writing articles for the Daily Prophet, she was truly captivated by a story. She wanted to find her quill and begin writing. This was revolutionary.

"How is this not widely known?" she asked the owner.

"It was hard enough telling my parents I wanted to be a woman, imagine telling the entire Wizarding community that I'm co-mingling freely with muggles. There are probably a thousand laws against this, but what the patrons can't tell won't hurt me." Diona laughed aloud.

Draco whispered in her ear as Diona said hello to a few of her friends, "How do you like the underground, Granger?"


	12. The Tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione gets a close look at the glamour.

Philip had gone to bed by the time they had crawled back to his plant-filled roof. Carmen and William descended the stairs first, then Hermione, then Draco carrying the sleeping Aurora. Sometime between the disappearing elephant and the Sumi-tiger turned real tiger she had begun to doze. Hermione envied the innocence on the young girl's face.

As William was making little makeshift magic beds on the floor with the blankets Philip had provided, Hermione pulled back the covers so Draco could lay Aurora down. They tucked her in together and their fingers touched over the comforter. For a second, neither one of them moved, then Hermione yanked her hand back and started for the bathroom.

"I'll change clothes." She muttered and left before Draco could say anything.

The bathroom was like any other bathroom that she had ever been in. A toilet, a sink, a mirror, and a claw-foot tub. Little towels hanging on the wall. Everything in this sickening hue of orange with dashes of white. Her beaded purple bag clashed with the color scheme as she set it on the sink. Her face in the mirror looked tired and slightly confused. Hermione leaned on the white ceramic sink and stared forlornly at the water that hadn't quite made it down the drain.

Aurora's little talk had stuck with her throughout the little magic show and now she was reminded of it. The idea that Draco Malfoy, the son and heir of Lucius Malfoy, would harbor feelings for her that weren't hatred for years seemed like some stupid love story she'd heard before. The brainy, eager know-it-all dresses up once and suddenly she attracts the attentions of the coolest boy in school. She laughed at herself and took a deep breath.

"You know he wasn't speaking about you. Aurora simply connected the wrong dots. He's a self-satisfied prick on the inside and no unbreakable glamour changes him to some lovesick romantic with a decade's worth of hidden devotion. You know the idea's foolish anyway."

Hermione was whispering to herself in the mirror, trying to dissuade whatever notion Aurora had planted there and when she realized what she was doing, she hurriedly turned on the water and splashed her face. The cold burst on her skin dashed away her thoughts and she sighed. Her best pajamas were only an arm's reach away and she quickly went about putting them on. A t-shirt and loose plaid shorts; she kept her socks on just because.

When she exited the bathroom, both William and Aurora were fast asleep. Draco was standing by the window glancing outward and he turned to face her.

"Did you want to try testing the glamour tonight? We'll have very little time tomorrow."

Brandishing her wand, Hermione nodded. "Sure, why not? At least it'll give me a base to work from."

"Right, well, let's leave them to their dreams." He led the way out of the room and back to the roof. It was warmer than she thought it would be and she surmised that the plants needed a greenhouse effect to flourish. It made her curious as to what Philip was growing, but she didn't want to pry. At least, not while he was asleep.

"So, how do you want to do this?" he asked her, holding his arms out to the side.

"First," she flicked her wand to cast a silencing charm. "just in case."

"Oh, don't worry. They've heard me screaming in agony before. I think it was something about being punched in the face." Draco was smirking at her but she looked away. His words were supporting the theory in her head and she refused to believe it.

"Well, just be still and I'll try to find the source of the glamour. I won't try to remove it just yet, but I will be pushing at it so I apologize for any pain." Hermione was focused on being professional and straightforward, because anything else would have her asking awkward questions.

The glamour was, inexplicably, whole when she delved into the magic around Draco.

Frustrated, Hermione came back to herself and crossed her arms. "The collapsing spell didn't do anything. The tree has neither grown nor shrunk. It's almost as though I haven't touched you at all."

"Well, we all know that's not true. You've touched me plenty." He laughed to himself and Hermione poked him with her wand.

"You're like a child." She settled herself and tried testing the tree. It bent like a supple branch when she pushed, but it was also as tenacious as one. If she wanted, she could wrap it as though it were clay, to form a thick layer that resembled the surface of an oak. But when she tried lifting the tree away from his spine, she could see the underside was riddled with roots that clung not only to his spine but also to his nervous system. Well, no wonder he screamed last time, she thought.

"It's worse than I imagined, Draco. But, I think I know why it came back."

"Oh?" he was frowning at her and all the playfulness had gone.

"It's a tree, attached to your nerves, and anchored by your spinal cord. When I collapsed it last time, it broke like a bone...leaving some of the roots behind. I'm theorizing that the remnants use your magic to grow back to its former state. Luckily it isn't expanding or trying to bury itself deeper."

"It's static?" The flowers were making her lightheaded and Hermione nodded, breathing shallowly.

"And very strong. Your father must have spent time casting it. The glamour is incredibly intricate."

Draco chuckled. "He knocked me out actually. Right after I told him I was going to tell the truth about all the things I had done for Voldemort. Apparently, having an heir who can't bear your name is better than spending your life sentences together in Azkaban. Being someone else makes it possible for me to go out and live without Ministry scrutiny, get married to a nice girl and have children that can bear the Malfoy name.

"My father gave me his money legally before he went to Azkaban and I paid off the proper people while I was still known as Draco Malfoy to appease him before he was put away. My mother was going to accompany me to my confession afterwards, but my father somehow learned what I was going to do and cast the glamour."

Hermione soaked in that information and when her brain had processed the surface of it, she sighed. "But if even the Ministry can't tell you are a Malfoy, how will your children bear your family name?"

"My father told me to contact one Mister Wileaux when I found the woman I wished to marry. According to him, this man will have my father's wand, which is the only thing that can be used to undo the glamour. Good old Lucius tied the spell with his wand like my grandfather would."

"Why haven't you just taken some random woman to Mister Wileaux and have him remove the glamour?" The warmth of the greenhouse roof was making her sleepy.

"Because my father is smarter than that. I would have to legally, and in a magically binding way, marry the woman I presented. Plus, I would have to agree, once more in a binding fashion, that I would never attempt to confess my crimes to anyone."

"Have you never tried to find a wife? It doesn't seem so bad...what he's asking." Hermione didn't know how Draco's hand made its way into hers, but she let it stay.

"Think about the worst thing you've ever done to another human being and imagine all that shame and guilt and disgust rotting away inside of you. At some point, you start to wish that you could be honest...just to free yourself from the prison of silence. Even if I loved someone enough to burden them with my name, I couldn't bear the complete ignorance I would be marrying. My children would believe I was a saint...and everyone would forget about the dead, except for me."

"I can break this glamour, Draco. I can free you."

The grey eyes that were staring at her were young and lost. "I was never free, Granger. My existence is chained to my name and my name to a predestined life. Freedom isn't a pureblood concept."

"Mudbloods know it fairly well." She said with a half-smile.

"Don't call yourself that...never call yourself that." Draco walked back to the stairs and vanished into the flat, leaving Hermione in the cluttered forest of flowers.


	13. The Visit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some grudges don't die.

Hermione had never really taken part in the pre-show madness, she usually just showed up for the show and the downtime afterward. She would have never expected that there was so much craziness.

The backroom that Firstborn Sons was occupying was really only room enough for one performer, but the four artists before her approached it as though it was something natural. The costumes they would wear during the show were side-by-side: Carmen's, then Draco's, then William's and Aurora's, stacked in the order they would be used. The instruments were already on the stage, mostly because there simply wasn't enough space for them in here. Hermione would have thought of expanding it with magic, but Diona was too busy nowadays to do it.

Before they were set to perform, another little band was playing and they had gotten the, if possible, smaller room across the hall. William and Carmen were sharing the mirror to apply their makeup and Draco was helping Aurora with hers. Hermione had been tasked with repairing some of the tears or burns in the costumes as they got themselves ready. Again they were all moving about like one entity.

"Issac!" Aurora whined, fidgeting in her chair. Well, there was only one chair and she had claimed it. "I look like a raccoon!"

"Only because you wouldn't stop moving. Here," and he used his wand to fix the extra black eyeliner. "Now you look...terrible."

Aurora laughed and hugged him before hurrying off to her first outfit.

William had just finished making his bloodshot eyes look less so and was tugging on his trousers one stumbling leg at a time. Carmen couldn't seem to find a shade of grey that made him happy and ended up just scrapping it to apply a shadowy shade of burgundy.

"You could hold the tambourine, Granger." Hermione looked over just in time to see Draco shed his trousers for his first costume and her eyes flicked to the wall very fast.

"Do you even have a tambourine?"

"No, but you're a smart witch...you'd figure it out." He was yanking up the tight black trousers he would wear for the first three songs, and she caught one glimpse of his toned back before she hurriedly spun to fix Aurora's zipper.

"Sweethearts?" Diona came around the corner, completely decked out in her best, and granted them a small smile. "There is a guest here for Issac...Auror Brighton." her eyes showed her fear and she stared pointedly at Draco.

A man round about forty, thin and simple looking, stepped in with his graying brown hair pressed beneath a pageboy cap. He appeared quite unassuming and gentile. As he shuffled into the room, Draco swallowed and his face grew stony. Aurora slipped back so she was closer to Carmen and William rubbed at his nose hurriedly.

"Mister Turin." The voice that erupted from the rather plump, pursed lips of Auror Brighton was anything but kindhearted. "You have a knack for discovering the worst of places to be. The business of a transgender felony offender of which you've given staggering amounts of Galleons...well, one might assume you are in cohorts."

"Freaks fly in flocks, Brighton." Draco finished lacing his trousers and turned around. "You might want to join us."

"Join you? I can take all of you in for illegal activity and put you," he pointed at Draco's bare chest. "in a cozy little cell beside your dear old dad."

Hermione wanted to say something, but drawing attention to herself now seemed like a very bad idea. Between her and Aurora was a rack of spare boas and coats and hats, which acted as a shield. Hermione watched as Draco advanced slowly, bemusedly.

"And wouldn't my dad be overjoyed?"

"He should be. You'd be the last thing Lucius sees before he is given the Kiss."

In hindsight, Hermione probably saw it coming, but she didn't react at all. Draco leaped across the space and his fingers dug deep into Brighton's neck. The Auror crumpled beneath the fury in the younger man and he whimpered through his quivering lips. The grey eyes turned icy and his muscles were flexing with each movement.

"I should rip your sniveling little life from you now and spare myself the trouble later, you stupid, ambitious bastard." Hermione had never seen this side of the Malfoy heir and she was equal parts frightened and excited. He was crouched above the Auror with a feral grin on his face and a shiny gleam in his eye that was almost evil. "Ever since you lost that promotion you've been hounding my fucking trail like a dog in heat and I could give damn about it, but don't you ever...ever think of letting my father's name cross your fat lips. Send me to Azkaban, take my fucking soul, but never assume that your worthless life is enough to deserve to witness Lucius Malfoy's."

Hermione swallowed as Aurora's little hand touched Draco's shoulder and he released the Auror. Stepping back it seemed his fire extinguished and he sighed.

"Pull yourself off the ground, Brighton, turn around and leave this club before I kill you."

"I'll get you for this." Brighton's voice was still cold and angry, but his face was a melting candle.

"And I'll be waiting, son of a bitch..." Draco paused, then his jaw ticked. "I do believe I told you to leave."

Brighton retreated and when he was out of sight, Diona hit her knees. "What have you done, Issac? Are you even Issac Turin? Lucius Malfoy? I'm going to Azkaban." She shivered and her mouth fell open. "I'm going to Azkaban!"

"No one is going to that hellhole, Di." He leaned over and helped her up. "No matter who I am or what I've done, I won't let you go to that place. Alright?"

Diona nodded and tried to wipe the tears from her face. She had never looked more like a girl than now.

"I trust you, Issac...Draco."

"That's all I've ever asked of you."

"Well, you better get ready...that other band will be off the stage in a few minutes." As Diona walked away, Hermione stepped out from behind the rack of clothing.

"What was that?" she asked Draco.

"Me being an idiot."

"Will your idiocy be a real problem later?"

He chuckled. "You've faced my aunt...we'll be fine."

"Bellatrix wasn't an Auror with a grudge, Draco. Brighton could lock us all away and no one would raise a protest."

"No, Potter would come for you and bring all his boy wonder with him. You'd never see the inside of a cell." Draco was waving his wand and casting his dragon makeup, which made his eyes even brighter. Hermione leaned over him in the mirror and met his gaze.

"Brighton won't be swayed with a hero's face and pretty words, Draco. Sooner or later he will stop hinting at his wrath. Do you really want to go to Azkaban?"

"This isn't about what I want, Granger...nothing is about what I want."

"Then maybe it should be." She patted his bare shoulder which was warm beneath her hand.


	14. The Mother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione chats with Narcissa again.

Hermione didn't create a tambourine or walk on stage when it was their turn to go; instead she was sitting in the dressing room, thinking.

Narcissa had never said anything about Lucius' wand or the alternate way Draco could break the glamour. She also hadn't told her that there was a bloodthirsty Auror after him either. Hermione knew there was something she needed to do about all this lack of information. So she checked which song the band was on and hurriedly left the club. To the left of the dressing room was another door which led to some very short stairs and out the thick security door. The warm night air hit her like a punch in the face and she pulled off her light jacket.

Once she had shoved the jacket into her beaded bag, she gazed around and Apparated on the spot.

She hadn't been back to Malfoy Manor since Ron, Harry and herself had been taken by Snatchers. The towering structure was just as uninviting as it was that night and she was tempted to leave, but she had come for a reason. The peacocks weren't visible or simply weren't there; she supposed Narcissa had put them somewhere safe for her husband. The house did seem dreary without them though.

The front door was cold and sturdy, like the way Malfoys had been bred since the name was created and she hesitated for a moment before she knocked. The knocker was the tail of a twisted serpent with a golden sheen over the bronze fixture. If Hermione had had any doubt that this was the house of Slytherins, it ended at this sight.

She didn't have to wait long before the matriarch came to the door, her face pinched and her hair curled to the side for bed.

"Ah, Granger...perhaps now is not the time." her voice was strained and serious; her shoulders taut with anger.

"Are you alright, Missus Malfoy?" Hermione whispered, glancing about the entryway. She saw Narcissa mouth the word Auror before someone else answered.

"Granger? Hermione Granger?" To Hermione's distaste, the wormy man who had visited them at Diona's was holding his cap in his wrinkled hands, gazing up at her with interest. He didn't appear to recall she was at the club.

"Yes, sir. May I ask your name?" She put on a play of ignorance to suit the scene.

"Auror Winfred Brighton, soon to be Head of the Department. It is a pleasure to meet one of the Golden Trio." There was genuine cheer in his voice as he held out his hand. Out of courtesy, she shook it with a modest smile.

"Harry's the hero, sir." she replied, meeting Narcissa's eyes quietly.

"That boy couldn't find his way out of an open door without you, the way I hear it. And he's quite the boasting brat in the training room...got a voice on him to convert the most stalwart of Aurors. But I'll put him straight when I get promoted. He needs a firm hand."

Hermione breathed out of her nose, sang the alphabet in her head and even bit her tongue, but she still couldn't stop the words from flooding out her lips.

"With all due respect, Auror Brighton, Harry Potter is the reason you can walk about freely. When you and Minister Fudge and all the other idiots at that sham of government were dancing around with your heads in your arses, he was risking his life to defeat a man that had stolen everything from him before he could even feed himself. Harry can be as thick as a board sometimes, I grant you, but if I had a choice between you and him to protect me...well, you know who I would choose." She stepped inside, staring down into his eyes. "After all, it was Harry that Voldemort deemed a threat, not you." She glanced at Narcissa and the woman gestured to the door.

"Good night, Auror Brighton."

He smirked at them and left, his neck stiff as a plank.

"Never in my life would I think of thanking a mudblood," Narcissa said with a sigh, shutting the door. "but I don't know what else to say."

Hermione nodded. "Did he come to harass you?"

"How did you know?"

"He visited Draco at Dion's Temple before the show. Draco lost his temper."

Narcissa led them into the parlor and suddenly tea was laid out; fresh and steaming. The woman served herself and invited Hermione to do so. The prejudice was still there, even through the common enemy.

"Brighton was the man who came to take Lucius away. Draco wasn't there at the time and when he came home, they had already come and gone. The next time he saw his father was behind bars."

"I would say I'm sorry, but..." The two women shared a gaze and they both understood. 'Forgiven, not forgotten.'

"It is Draco I worry about. Contrary to what I told you in Diagon Alley, I hate that he has learned to live with it. I haven't because I don't want to; I suffer through it. I can never mention my son, my flesh and blood, because he can never be seen. Then, Auror Brighton calls on us with updates of Lucius' progress..." Narcissa's tea was shaking in her cup and she placed it on the table. After a moment to compose herself, she spoke. "What brings you here?"

"Your son. Your husband's wand. One Mister Wileaux." Hermione set her tea down as well. "I want to remove the glamour but I should have known about this."

"It is the option Draco preferred to leave untraveled. I did not think it worthy of discussion."

"Well, it is. Why haven't you tried Mister Wileaux? Lucius has been in Azkaban for four years. You can't tell me there aren't any eligible women in England."

Narcissa met Hermione's eyes quietly. "I hate you for your blood because I was raised to believe you are lesser and foul. I hate blue flowers in the light of the moon because my mother condemned the color grey from being beautiful in plants. I hate the Ministry for putting my husband away in that place. But I love my son too much to force some harlot into his life forever. He deserves to be loved and to love. He deserves to have everything I have with Lucius and if I have to endure the trial of never being able to publicly embrace my only child to give him that, then so be it. I may be a pureblood bitch to you and your Order, but I am a damn good mother." The speech seemed to tire her and Hermione granted her a smile.

"Yes, you are, Missus Malfoy." and the woman let her squeeze her hand. "That was never in doubt."

"Lucius wanted to give Draco another chance at life. He wanted our son to be better than he was. Some days I hate the way he went about it, but most of the time I love him all the more. He spared Draco the horror he himself could not escape. My son may never realize it, but Lucius had never been more of a father than when he cast that glamour. Don't you let that sacrifice go in vain because of my selfishness. Find a way to free him from the lie, but protect him from that monster Brighton."

"Of course I will. Of course."


	15. The Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes life reminds you of how lonely you really are.

Hermione got back in time for the last song and slipped behind the curtains to watch up close. Aurora and William were side by side, eyes closed and silent as Carmen played a somber melody that had a hint of defiance. Draco was holding his mic to his lips, sweat glistening off his magically scaled skin as he began.

"It's believed good men are remorseful, it's believed the regret makes you greater, but I've seen a whole army of delightful killers in the ranks of saviors." Aurora echoed certain words, which Hermione took to be the end of each line. Remorse, greater, delight, saviors...saviors.

"We don't even notice misconceptions because they seem too factual. We don't even whisper deceptions because the masses are so gullible. Killers wept and killers were saved and good men die on good days. But killers weep and killers were killed, and they died on good days still."

William and Carmen hit their instruments hard, switching deftly from pity to fury. The crowd was dancing to the new beat and shaking their heads with the beat-beat-beatbeatbeat-beatbeat-beat-beatbeat.

"Once or twice a skull would weep by me and in the tears I could hear the apologies, but who would hear the words of the enemy; who gave a damn about his pleas?"

The light was heavy, even from this angle and Hermione quietly cast a cooling charm at the drenched Draco as the song came to an end. He flicked his eyes back in suspicion, but she just smiled at him. To her surprise, he came over and yanked her out on stage. She stumbled into the spotlight and observed the crowd from a brand new perspective. It was like staring into a million glowing embers that had burst out of a smoldering fire. The light wasn't exactly heavy, but it held emotional pressure.

Draco smirked at her and she frowned with an apprehensive humor. The three behind them answered his cue of two waved fingers and a new song struck up.

"I live in this sham of bliss, wishing for your warmth. It's freezing where you don't shine, I wonder what I'm living for. Is it right to be so lost to someone you can't see a day without their idiosyncrasies? They pierce into the defenses and spare...no one, no one."

Hermione couldn't even hear the music over the rushing in her ears. Aurora's words of before and the things she had spoken of with Narcissa were crushing her with their weight.

"I see colors everywhere, in my dreams I am running from them. Giving in, why do I care? In my life I am chasing them. One will wrap around your finger, the other's running through your blood. I cry at night for the fear that lingers. Our love is silver and gold, so why do you run?"

Draco was reeling her in physically and her bare arms were braced against his sides. She lightly held his waist as she fought with herself about playing along or shoving him away. His eyes were so pale a grey that he looked exotic with his black scales. His breath smelled of smoke and she knew he had done his dragon trick recently; Draco's skin was hot like fire.

"I'm nothing if not completely dishonorable and should you choose to be caught with this despicable, selfish liar, cold-blooded killer, I would never let you fall alone. The news would write of how I'd steal her, but then again, what would they know? They can't breathe without their imbeciles. They feed off of love and they spare...No one, no one." It was almost a serenade and Hermione could see the effort of each note on Draco's face.

He leaned in, so near to her lips that she felt them connect, and every fiber in her longed to deepen it. The enormity of the urge to hold herself to him filled her with fear. Fear of the chance that Aurora was right. Fear that Draco cared for her. Fear that she might care as well.

Without warning, she yanked away and saw Draco's closed eyes open. She couldn't look into his grey orbs and she ran off the stage.

The hallway by the back door was empty and she couldn't breathe. Pacing back and forth, Hermione tried to understand what was wrong. She tried to approach it logically, she tried to see it bizarrely, but nothing made any sense. Her heart was beating loudly, so she barely heard the footsteps.

"What was that?" he asked, quietly.

"Why are you playing this game with me?" she whispered, looking away.

"Why are you here with me?" He was getting closer to her.

"The glamour. I promised your mother I would free you...I promised you."

"And why did you do that? All the years I've known you and I haven't done a single thing to deserve your help...or to want it." Draco was staring at her with an unfathomable expression. "I knew you had left the moment you came back. The scent of Malfoy Manor...the scent of my mother. What keeps you coming back when you can leave? An article?"

"I needed to know why she hadn't told me about Mister Wileaux. I needed the truth. And I knew I wouldn't get it from you...not all of it anyway." She sighed and turned to meet his eyes. Draco was invading her space again.

"Why are you running from me, Hermione?" Her name was so separate from herself in that moment that she almost didn't answer.

"Running?"

"I've kissed you before and something in you always denies it...why?" Is he moving closer?, she thought.

"I don't feel what I think I'm feeling. You're Draco Malfoy and I'm Hermione Granger the mudblood."

"I told you not to call yourself that." He muttered, then his lips closed over hers solidly. His arms tightly wound about her waist and she forgot what she was talking about. Once more she couldn't breathe, but as she let her arms crawl up to his neck, she realized she didn't care.

In that moment, even if Aurora was right or wrong, Hermione just wanted to be exactly where she was and no place else. There was home, where she could always count on her mother and father. There was family, where she could walk into the Weasley's and have Molly call her and Ginny sisters. Then there was the warmth from Draco's skin and the feel of his lips. Home away from home.

"Issac...oh." Darren with his dark hair and shaded eyes stopped in his tracks. He smiled slightly and raised his eyebrows. Hermione swallowed as she stepped back. "I was going to tell you...never mind. Carmen can fill you in." Darren shook his head and walked away.

Draco licked his lips, sighed, and chuckled. "You shouldn't listen to Aurora. I've said some really stupid things because of Firewhisky."

"Like losing the love you always write about when you aren't telling Voldemort's secrets?" her voice was low and unsure, but her eyes were sharp.

"What love?" He questioned. "Real love is never one-sided." Like every other moment they had alone, he left her by herself...conflicted.


	16. The Redlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Familiar places bring familiar faces.

Living like a musician included just as much travelling as living like a fugitive.

Philip was happier than ever to see the backs of them, so happy in fact that he helped them get ready to leave. Carmen had already spoken to Draco to tell him where they were playing next, which turned out to be a place a couple blocks down the road from the Leaky Cauldron. Hermione was suddenly reminded of why she was even here; an article by the end of the month for the front page.

She had gotten a letter from Benson at the Daily Prophet, asking for her progress and she responded civilly, if a little negligent in the details. When she had gone about this, it had been skeptically. She was going to bust another fake band that played off the emotions of the bereaved. Instead, she found Draco and the drama of this glamour.

Aurora had left her on the roof with a bag of small belongings, tinkling little things that made a ruckus in the messenger bag. William was hunched over one of Philip's plants, a pair of shearing scissors in his hands. The constant snick-rustle as he stole from the garden permeated the air. The Gryffindor in Hermione longed to stop him, but the truth was she had no place. It wasn't her family, it wasn't her garden and he was too old to be her responsibility.

Draco came up the stairs and whisked his broom off the wall. She would have to ride behind him again.

"It should only take us an hour to get to Rotlicht by broom. I'd Apparate, but Brighton knows how to follow Apparation."

"Isn't that illegal?" Hermione muttered, bringing herself to standing.

"He's the law, Hermione, he makes up the rules." Philip shoved Carmen out the door after Aurora and locked it securely. Draco nodded and everyone mounted.

The sky was nice and empty, cloudless and blue. She gazed up at it, then quizzically at the group.

"Our brooms have cloaking features. I paid for it specifically." His blond hair had no traces of the black grease and his skin was once more porcelain. Even his eyes had reverted back to their normal grey, which resembled his father's to the nth degree. She threw her leg over the broom behind him and held his waist.

"Were you planning on flying in the daytime a lot?"

"No, but I like knowing I can't be seen." There was a hint of self-deprecation in his tone and she squeezed tighter.

"I can see you, Draco." she breathed against his skin.

"Only because you're on the broom." Draco's voice was morose and William shouted out in his abrasive manner from the sky above them.

"They're fucking again. You see it, Carmen? She's biting his ear." He whistled and Draco kicked up into the air. Hermione held her breath.

"It's usually not so quiet." He hit the throttle and they jutted straight up into the air, then he let them fall.

She knew he was playing around, knew he was just showing off, but when he threw his hands into the air, she screamed. Draco laughed aloud and leveled them out, catching up with the group before she could catch her breath.

"That's fucking, Willy boy. Not a quiet girl in the place."

Rotlicht was a small establishment, tucked away behind a couple of facade buildings. Hermione saw why when she took stock of the sign. Rotlicht was curved above the double doors and to either side there were window boxes where dancers could attract the passerby customers. Everything was a shade of red, especially the sign.

A woman with long hair braided in an intricate manner on top of her head was standing happily before what appeared to be her property.

"Issac, you're late." her accent was French, Hermione had been in France enough to know.

"Not any later than I've been before. How's the business, Claribel?"

"Not any better than yesterday. Come inside and say hello to my new girls." She was about as tall as a twelve-year old and dressed in a decorative kimono. Her face was wrinkled but she spoke with a kind authority.

'The girls' were all dressed up like scantily clad flappers, shimmery and smiling. The smell of incense burning became the air and the lights on the stage gave off a hint of madness. The entire room was its own separate world.

Claribel whistled and the girls assembled, smiling as they finished pinning up their hair and straightening their tiny skirts.

"The twelve little harlots in the front are the Months." The girls of various colors with top hats curtsied theatrically. "Then there's the Zodiac." The girls further up, with themed costumes, waved and giggled. "Then, last, but not least, we have Jezebel."

The woman at the top, sitting on a plush cushion with her delicate wand in her hands, granted them a wicked smirk.

"Thank you, that will be all. Call Martin to set up the stage." The smiles faded off the faces and the girls slipped one by one off the stage in a relaxed confidence. Jezebel went behind the curtain instead.

"Where will you be staying until tonight, Issac?" Claribel asked, poking Carmen's side as she sized up Aurora.

"Leaky Cauldron. Darren reserved us two rooms."

"Two?" Hermione whispered, frowning at Draco. He laughed, shaking his head when Claribel started to size her up.

"Well, we do need some alone time."

Hermione pursed her lips. "Not a chance."

They said their goodbyes to Claribel and her sea of red to cross the block and enter the Leaky Cauldron. It was as it had always been and Hermione noticed that it felt a little like home. Draco went to the bar and she followed, only because the flight had made her thirsty...yeah, that's why. She caught herself staring at his back, comparing the way his muscles moved underneath his shirt to the position of the tree. Hermione could almost trace its location by the rolling of his musculature. She should probably take notes of it.

Her thoughts ran away with her and she bumped into someone on her way to the bar. She hurriedly said sorry and broke her concentration to meet the person's eyes. Emerald green behind a sheen of reflective glass.

"Harry?"

A jolt of fear, as though she had been caught red-handed while rule-breaking, shot up her chest and she swallowed hard. For a moment, she couldn't say anything else, then she shook her head and smiled.

"Hey!" Hermione quickly covered up her hesitation and gave her friend a hug. He returned it without a hint that he had noticed anything amiss.

"Did Miss Triton help?" he asked her, shifting his feet and a couple heavy looking boxes under his arm. His Auror uniform was unbuttoned around the collar and his ring finger was encircled at the base with a gold band.

"What? Oh, yes, she was exactly what I needed. What do you have there?"

"Flowers. Molly wanted real ones for the wedding and she also wanted a bush or two of the other variety to keep the gnomes from the vegetables behind the house."

"What kind are the others?"

"Fencing roses. Short little shrub-like things that are magically altered to avoid overtaking nearby plants. And they also attack bugs, animals or thieving gnomes. Fred had been working on a formula before..." Harry's lips worked in a mixture of emotion and then he grinned. "Well, George perfected it. Seems they had gotten tired of picking them out by hand."

Hermione chuckled. "How's Gin?"

"Stressed. Molly's been insufferable since the first. She wants to get everything done for the wedding and for your birthday next month."

"It's not until the eighteenth! Besides, I don't think my birthday is more important than your wedding."

"I do." Draco was swirling the liquid in his cup and eyeing Harry.

"Oh, Harry, this is Issac Turin." she immediately wanted to quell the possible confrontation that was boiling.

"The guy you are writing an article about?" Harry accepted her nod and held out his free hand. "Nice to meet you."

Draco smirked, but shook the proffered hand. "You as well, Potter."

Harry frowned, a confused smile on his face. "I could swear that I know you from somewhere..."

"I get that a lot. Do you?" His voice was rife with a gleeful provocation.

"Not anymore, thank Merlin. People have finally stopped staring at me like I have three heads. It was hard to be human with that attention."

"Then perhaps you aren't all lost...there's hope for us yet." He gulped his drink and looked away. "If you'll excuse me."

Once Draco had gone, Harry gave a soft uncomfortable laugh. "He's an odd one, isn't he?"

"We all are every once in a while, I guess." They lapsed into a silence that Harry broke with a sigh.

"I better get back to the Burrow before Ginny comes looking for me. I've become a human buffer recently."

They hugged again and Harry walked out the front door to Apparate. Hermione watched him disappear with a wave of a fierce realization. And it set her entire sense of self off track.


	17. The Tale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco tells a dark tale.

She roomed with Aurora, who was quiet and staring at her unblinkingly. Hermione performed her usual 'settling in' actions, all under the steady eye of the red-haired girl. Eventually, she couldn't stand it anymore.

"Is there something wrong?"

"Do you love him?"

Hermione let out a soft laugh that was part shock, part fear. "What are you talking about, Aurora?"

"Issac. Do you love him?" The petite bassist stood from the chair in the corner of the room and crossed her arms.

"I...Look, this isn't really..."

"Either you do or you don't, Jean Paige. Or Hermione Granger. All this time you've been chums with Potter and yet Brighton still exists. Do. You. Love. Him?" Aurora's eyes were sharp and determined, much like her own would be if she were defending Harry.

"Does he love me?" she countered, crossing her own arms.

Aurora laughed. "I told you before at Diona's about the girl he used to know. I have never seen him this happy since I met him. Perhaps you can't read Issac's happiness because you're blind or you're too stuck in your ways to believe it, but he lights up when you're around. That thing on the stage yesterday, that kiss, wasn't some ploy to gain attention from the crowd. But you're the smartest witch of your age...it shouldn't be too hard to figure out."

"Aurora..."

"He cares about you, maybe he loves you, and I'm not so young that I can't tell that you return the feelings. But if it's true and you are Hermione Granger, then why the hell haven't you done something? Issac pissed off that stupid pug-faced Auror before and he always finds a way to get even. You need to do something to prevent it...because you have the ability to."

The girl turned and left the room. Since she didn't like the thoughts flying through her head, Hermione dug her notes out of her bag and went about reading through them. Her first real chat with Draco was filled with information and she found herself staring at the word written a few times. It wasn't necessarily important to her article, but it kept her mind off of what Aurora had said.

She knew as well as anyone how the people at the Ministry could be. And she herself had warned Draco about Brighton. Hermione made a mental note to talk to Harry tomorrow. He would have his hands full with Ginny and Molly for the rest of the day.

She found Draco in an alley in Knockturn, staring into the shop window of a small dilapidated bookstore.

"What happened with Maggie? Is she the crime you wanted to confess?" The name of the muggle girl was sitting in her mind's eye like an omen.

"That and a few others." He was leaning against a wall with contemplative look on his face.

"I know about the wine and the necklace. I know what happened on the Tower with Dumbledore. I know you have the Mark and I know none of that would warrant your desire to tell. Too many people know about those for that to haunt you." She stepped in front of him. "But you sang about Maggie, Draco."

"Is this an interrogation?" There was a hopelessness in his grey orbs and he looked away again.

"No. You wanted a chance to confess your crimes." She opened her arms in invitation. "I'm all ears."

"Why are you asking about her now?"

"I overlooked it before, because I didn't think too deeply about it. But if all the things I know aren't what's eating you alive, then maybe she is."

"It's not a pretty story, Hermione."

"I don't care if it's gory. You need to talk and I'm listening."

He shook his head, but when he gazed upwards, he didn't look away.

"I had just spent the summer being suppressed by my father's mistake, walking on tiptoes to avoid the explosion when Voldemort gets this clever idea. Lucius is seemingly unaffected by threats on his own life, since he can't seem to complete any task given to him, so why not up the ante? A summon that you can't ignore. A promise that looks more than redemptive, it looks glorious. Take the mantle of the father, shine as he never shined, do the cause proud. I thought it was some honor when he looked down at me with those eyes.

"The Mark doesn't hurt as much as the fire of his magic does. It was more of his intent than anything else. I did well during the ceremony; I didn't make a sound. But getting the Mark is just step one. Next comes the test...to see if you really are ready."

Hermione kept quiet, just listening, trying to remain objective and open. She knew he needed this, she knew he wanted this. Otherwise he wouldn't have started his tale.

"They brought in this muggle girl a little younger than Aurora, who was crying and apologizing and...and not fighting. She just kept begging them to forgive her. Everyone else had masks on, but I hadn't received one so my face was the first she saw. She broke free of the men holding her to wrap her arms about my waist and sob. She told me that she was a good girl and she didn't mean to be so angry at her mother. Bellatrix told me to lay her on the ground, to comfort her.

"She never comforted anyone but herself, so I knew it wasn't a thought from the heart, but I did what she said. That face the girl made when I told her to trust me..." Draco swallowed and his eyes had gone blank in memory. "I just brushed her hair back from her face and righted her knit cap which had a blue G on it. When I asked her what it meant, she whispered that it stood for Graham, like the cracker. I smiled...I smiled at her for a moment and then Voldemort spoke. He said the girl was muggle scum and less than any magical being, so she must be punished for living...because in his twisted mind torturing innocent schoolgirls was justice."

"He was mad, Draco. He had lost his mind long ago."

"But I hadn't lost mine!" His grey eyes were wild and searching. "Not yet. So explain to me why it was so easy to chose my life over hers. Explain to me how I'm better than Voldemort because I 'did what I had to'."

"What happened next, Draco?" When he hesitated, she grabbed his head to make him look at her. "What happened next?"

"A couple of them held her down and a third ripped off her clothes." Hermione steeled herself for the worst. "I tried to flee but my aunt shoved me back. My mother looked away crying and Voldemort had taken his wand in hand. I met his eyes, I saw the order and I felt the flames in the Mark. I tried to find another way...I tried to muster up the courage to fight back, but...but..." He shuddered and pushed her away. "I'm done with this story, Hermione."

He started to walk away, and Hermione thought he had every right to, but something in her spoke up. "What did you do to Maggie, Draco?"

"I did what I was told...and when I finally fooled myself into finishing it, they told me to kill her. It had been the plan all along, and I knew that, but I didn't spare her from me because I was too petrified of dying for disobedience. So, wet with her virgin blood and my own cowardice, I pulled my wand." He was breathing heavily and shaking his head. "But I wasn't even enough of a man to kill her so she wouldn't linger in the pain, because somehow taking her virtue was easier than taking her life."

"Draco..." She didn't know what to say, she didn't know how to feel. In the notes she had of their conversation he had never said he did this to Maggie. He hadn't said the truth, but she could see why.

"There was still hope in her eyes when I found myself staring at her and since we were still so close together, I asked her name. And she laughed...she laughed like I had pleased her because I cared enough to ask. When Voldemort killed her she still had this smile...and even after she died she kept staring at me. She kept smiling." Draco started walking away again and Hermione was too stunned to stop him.


	18. The Gryffindor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione knows she can't just sit on her hands and wait for justice, she has to be the driving force.

The morning came upon her so quickly she was sure it was still night. Maggie and the torture on Draco's face had haunted her and she had barely been able to rest more than a few minutes before she would wake up again, crying. But the moment the sun touched her cheek, Hermione rose and dressed. Aurora muttered something in her sleep and snuggled back beneath the covers. She was never more a girl than when she slept. Hermione wondered how Draco could look at her without seeing that poor muggle girl and beating himself up for it.

No one was about as she crept down the stairs and out the front door of the Leaky Cauldron. She did gaze around in suspicion before she Apparated, though, just in case.

The Burrow appeared to be in quite the state when she arrived, even this early in the morning as Molly shuffled around the kitchen with a lovely song in the air from the radio. There were fencing roses set up along the garden, tables set out in various stages of completion and color, and three or four different models of cars peeking out from the new shed Arthur had built for his hobby. The whole house was alight with love just from the edge of the yard. Hermione wanted to cry but she couldn't explain why so she hurried to enter the house. Arthur was wandering sleepily in a dressing gown to the empty table just in time for the sausage to land.

"Morning, Hermione. Harry's upstairs going over reports."

"I don't come here just for Harry, Arthur. I love you all." Molly turned to smile and Hermione was yanked into a hug she couldn't help but return.

"Well, we love you as well, sweetheart. You will be staying for breakfast, won't you?" The bacon sizzled and Molly flicked her wand to add more.

"Of course. I'll just go say hello to Harry."

Harry had more than enough money to buy a home or build one, but he felt it best to put off that separation until the wedding. Ginny had been apprehensive about leaving her mother so quickly since Bill was married already, Charlie was somewhere around the world, Ron had moved out a couple years ago, Percy was off in Switzerland, George was in London with the shop, and Fred had been lost in the war. Hermione understood the choice to wait.

The room Harry occupied now used to be Ron's, but had grown up quite a bit in the years since the war. The posters were gone in favor of maps, schematics, reports and suspects. Harry was buried in the mass with his head bowed over a folder of a debriefing, his lips moving over the words and his hand scribbling something on the page beside him.

"Harry." she called softly, stepping into the room. He looked up, much like Bill had when she had come over and smiled.

"Come on in, you can sit on the bed."

She did, sighing as she glanced at her friend. "Harry, I have to tell you something that you probably won't believe and even if you did you would have no reason to help me, but I want you to try to understand what I am going to tell you. Okay?"

He set his papers down, turned in his chair and adjusted his glasses. His hair was all over the place but she knew he hadn't been on a broom in weeks. There was a hint of worry on the line that had come in between his brows.

"Are you in trouble, Hermione?" She could see his wand in his hand and that determination he had shown when they were running off to help Sirius. It was reassuring and she resolved to do what she came here to do.

"Sort of. Listen," She began from the front, when she first entered the Indigo Palace and worked her way to the point where she had walked through the door of Harry's room. Molly had yelled up breakfast before she could finish, but they had postponed descending the stairs until she had ended her story. The smell of home-cooked food permeated the air and her stomach grumbled when she took a breath and let Harry absorb everything.

"So," he stretched his neck and ran a hand across his mouth. "The Issac man I saw yesterday is really a glamoured Draco Malfoy, who is singing because he can't confess that he raped a girl under duress during the war when he was sixteen and he's being hounded by Winfred Brighton who wanted to capture both Malfoys as a bid for Head Auror back when the Trials had just begun?" she nodded. "Well, you sure know how to find trouble, Hermione."

"You believe me?"

Harry looked hurt. "I've known you since I was eleven, Hermione. If I can't believe you, who can I believe?"

She leaped off the bed to hug him and she couldn't stop the tears that ran down her cheeks. He laughed and hugged her back.

"What can I do to help?" he questioned when she resumed her seat.

"Investigate Brighton. The way he treats Draco can't be limited, he must have abused other suspects or criminals. Wasn't he the man that helped get Lucius in jail? I wrote about that judgement for a month, because everyone was outraged that they went against your verdict, even though you weren't part of the Ministry then. Maybe you can find something on him from the office. He has to be corrupt."

"And if I can't find anything, Hermione?"

She bit her lip. "It will probably be handled the old-fashioned way. With wands."

Harry nodded. " I'll do what I can. You just keep Malfoy from doing anything drastic until I can prove Brighton's dirty."

"Thank you, Harry."

She didn't get back to the Leaky Cauldron until mid-afternoon, when the Ministry officials came in to chat and drink and the random shopper would order a meal. No one called out to her and she hurried back upstairs to see if the group was still in their rooms. Hermione didn't even get to the room she shared with Aurora before she ran into Draco.

"I thought you left." he whispered, his arms crossed.

"No, I just had to do something."

"Am I going to see Maggie on the front page of the Prophet?"

"Not unless you want to, Draco."

"Why haven't you rushed to tell everyone? Isn't that what Gryffindors do?" his voice was slurred and she could smell the alcohol from ten feet away. She sighed and wrapped her arms around him. He stood still, not breathing for a moment, then he pulled her closer and dropped his head into her neck. He wasn't crying but she could feel him shuddering from the urge to. Hermione let her hands find his hair and brushed over it again and again.

"I care about you, Draco. I hate that this is destroying you so much. But if you think I'm running away from you because of Maggie, then you have no idea what a Gryffindor is."


	19. The Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some kisses are of life, others of death.

Some days it was hard to tell that the war had ended. He would walk out into the street and see something fairly average that reignited his memories. Or the Mark would burn abnormally strong and wake him up, thinking in that delirious awakening that the Dark Lord was there again, alive, ready to order him to destroy another piece of himself.

Since the day before when he had finally been able to confess, his moments of horrible nostalgia had both decreased and worsened. It felt lighter to have the secret told properly, but he had opened a door that swung both ways. Now he was stuck in the past where every day was something to fear.

When he had stepped out of his room to Aurora's muttering about Hermione's disappearance, he had automatically supposed she had gotten what she had come for. She would spread his shame across all of Britain, Brighton would finally have a leg up, and he would find himself in Azkaban. His father would be furious.

But he had underestimated the capacity of Gryffindor altruism. Hermione had come back and she was just as true as when she'd left. It was an honorable steadiness that most people he knew lacked.

He had decided against the dragon this show, instead going for a more intimate setting. He just didn't feel up to the fierceness of being a dragon. Aurora seemed to sense something wrong, but she didn't ask him about it. Carmen was his usual distant self and William was creating some new powder out of leaves he must have stolen from Philip's roof. If the drummer could break out of his self-destructive cycle, he would be quite the Potions Master.

The crowd was much different than in either the Indigo Palace, which was a setting for young partiers, or Dion's Temple which was aimed more at older couples. Rotlicht was a place for married men or free-thinking couples, coming together to watch beautiful women strip, dance and sing. He supposed the men would be a little off-put by his presence, but he had a few songs that the women could dance to so as not to completely go against Claribel's business set.

The women danced well enough to his words.

"I want to take you home now, right back to my flat. They say going down really isn't that bad. At least, I've heard. At most, I've said. You, my little bird, with hands on my head." It was fluff music, stuck between meaningless lyrics and lyrical expression of lust. He supposed both served a purpose.

Hermione was dancing across the room in the dark, laughing with Darren as he mentioned something with a smirk. Draco set the image of her writhing in his mind. There was nothing about her writhing that made him sick to his stomach or furious with himself.

"Indecisive, corrupting minx. I'd give just about one more drink to corrupt you. Indecisive, I just might think I'd give damn near anything to fu...touch you." Carmen made his guitar hum an Indian melody, reminding him of sand, bells and belly dancers.

Her smile faded as Claribel came up to the two and muttered behind her hand. There was a look of worry and distress on her wrinkled face and the Gryffindor Golden Girl hurried out the side door. He could actually feel the outside air from the stage as the door slammed shut.

Aurora gave him a shrug when he looked back and he let the feelings of foreboding slip behind his stage persona to hide until the end of the show.

"Show me how to be a man, I said, grant me the chance to understand why you don't say you love me anymore. Why you seem disappointed when I walk through the door. Wasn't I what you dreamt of in those long nights, when all you could hope for was a small golden light? I was born to the laughter of satisfied royals, but the happiness faded and the childhood spoiled." It was William's turn to make the song fly and he did so, proving that regardless of his flaws he was a damn good drummer.

Darren had wandered over to the bar and Claribel had vanished back into the office; the side door was still closed. He started the next song with his violin.

"If he's innocent, am I then innocent? How do I gain forgiveness for all you had to witness? Was he ever innocent, am I still innocent?"

Suddenly the door opened again and Hermione came through, bringing Potter with her. Draco looked at the two of them and wondered what was going on. Decked out in his red Auror best, Potter's hair was windswept and he had an authoritative air about him that he lacked at the Leaky Cauldron.

The show got quite a few ovations and Draco thought that it had been a success, but he didn't go with his bandmates to celebrate. Hermione and Potter led him outside of the club, which gave him more than a little red flag, and Hermione cast a silencing charm about them. Worry, for the first time, crept into his chest.

"Harry investigated Brighton and he found enough proof to put him away." Hermione said, a wobbly smile on her lips.

"Good...but what else?"

Hermione glanced to Potter and the boy wonder sighed. "Brighton was busy at the office today and he was pushing a stack of official papers to the signing process. He seemed to be surprised I was working and got jittery when I came over to talk. He hid the papers under some old reports until I walked away. I had to wait until he left to see what he was so urgent to legalize..." Potter hesitated. "Malfoy, I'm sorry."

He frowned, confused. "Why are you apologizing?"

Potter was either nervous or guilty and couldn't stand still. "He was on his way to Azkaban...he must have had this planned for a while. Everything was already in order. He even had a cell for you...but since he can't prove you are Draco Malfoy he couldn't prosecute you. So he did the next best thing. By the time I got the guards to let me through it was too late."

Draco knew what was being said, understood the words, but it wasn't striking home. Hermione wrapped her arms around him and he heard her whisper his name softly against his skin. He held her back and stared at Potter until his heart skipped. His vision blurred so quickly he thought he was going blind and his fist smashed into the wall with enough force to punch a hole. A scream of rage was working its way up his throat, but Hermione kissed him and he felt the agony crush him.

She followed him as he fell to his knees.


	20. The Bearer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grief makes us crazy sometimes.

Harry had left with a word of condolence, heading back to the Ministry to compile the charge against Brighton. She had stayed with her arms around Draco, both because she felt responsible and because she knew he needed someone around. This wasn't a time to be alone.

He was holding her tightly, his head buried in her neck, and he hadn't stopped sobbing since he realized what Harry was trying to say. When her friend had relayed the news, she had barely been able to believe it. Brighton must have reached the end of his rope. Giving Lucius Malfoy the Kiss was beyond payback, it was downright murder. Harry had been all anger when he had hurriedly told her. Sirius and their third year must have come back to him full force. She had never felt so ready to have someone dead. Aside from Voldemort, of course.

Her short-sleeve shirt must have been soaked with tears by the time Draco fell back against the wall. His grey eyes seemed empty and cold, like one of the corridors in Hogwarts after curfew. His face was splotched red around those eyes, but steadily grew paler as he breathed deeply. Hermione watched him closely and it seemed he was panting.

"Draco, calm down." she reached out to touch him, but he stood hastily and started walking away. "Draco, let Harry file the report. Let the law handle this..."

""Fuck the law, Granger, and fuck Potter. If that orphaned bastard was worth half the accolades he's been given my father would still be alive." He ripped off his robes and pulled his wand. "I'm going to go murder that little shit. Eye for an eye."

"Leaves the whole world blind, Draco." She felt like she was chasing him down the alleys of London.

"Is that really a change? Ever since the war everyone has faded off into their own little worlds to pretend that it never happened, to forget the pain and the suffering. To forget the truth. Good men became masked torturers, children became murderers, mothers became spies. Schools were lies to cover up propaganda, Ministry officials lied and bribed their way to longer lives while innocent people were slaughtered and half the hypocrites out there supported them wholeheartedly.

"But a few people stood up and fought back. A few people vanquished the monster half the population chose to ignore. And suddenly, out of the wreckage of selfless witches and wizards who died to defend them, comes the guilt. Guilt that they had chosen themselves over the same people they had always spoke about equally. The same people they stood up for when no Dark wizard was there to snatch the life from them.

"So when the clean-up starts and the mourning threatens to suffocate them, they are the first ones out there lending a hand. They can bury their guilt in charitable goodwill that comes a year too late to matter to any of the dead. But it helps them sleep at night, to think that they helped the heroes rebuild. Because they can't face the fact that they were less than the people who died, that their boasting talk in peace was nothing but hot air and ego boosts. Brighton is the same and it's time he was reminded of the truth."

They burst into the Leaky Cauldron and Draco threw a handful of Floo powder in the fireplace.

"Malfoy Manor." he muttered and vanished in a plume of fire. In fear that he would do something stupid if she didn't stop him, Hermione threw her own handful in to follow.

Narcissa was coming down the stairs of the foyer as Hermione caught up with Draco. He was pacing as he shouted for his mother. The whole house was quiet and restful; a complete difference from the event that had just occurred.

"Son, what's wrong?" She appeared to have just woken up and her eyes were bleary.

"He did it, mother. He said he would when he came to visit me and I didn't believe him."

"Draco, what are you saying?" Narcissa came quickly over to her son and stopped his feverish footsteps with a soft hand.

"He gave him the Kiss." Draco's eyes were so pale they looked white. "Brighton gave him the Kiss."

Narcissa smiled in disbelief, even as tears sprung to her eyes. "What?" Her voice was broken like glass.

Draco didn't repeat himself, he simply hugged his mother. She blinked quickly as she held his head to her, staring past his shoulder to the wall behind. Without warning, she wailed with all the strength in her body and Draco locked his arms around her as she fought him. Her hair shook free of its binds and her dressing gown fluttered as she screamed again and again.

"No!" her fist hit Draco's shoulder hard and he grunted, but stood firm. "No, no, no!"

Narcissa couldn't handle the weight of both her grief and her body, so she collapsed as her son had in that alley outside Rotlicht. And though her body had succumbed to the horror of the news, her lungs had no end of oxygen to fuel her wails. They were so loud and so many that Hermione almost didn't hear the door. But Draco stepped away from his mother and went to answer it, his wand in his hand and a snarl on his face.

Part of Hermione hoped it was Brighton so Draco could end him and the reasonable side of her hoped it was Harry with news about the charge.

Her vindictive side cheered when that smug wrinkled face appeared on the other side of the door. Brighton glanced inside, saw Narcissa on the ground and smirked happily.

"I see you've heard the news. That's too bad, I had hoped to tell you myself."

Hermione hurried forward, but Draco had already yanked the Auror inside and shut the door. The chandelier above them came to life, shedding a wild, murderous sheen over Draco's face.

"As much as you hate Potter, I would suggest that you pray he completes his corruption report and comes to retrieve you within the night. For if he doesn't, there won't be enough of you left to take to court."

"You can't kill me, boy. I'm an Auror." Brighton had resumed his feet and drawn his own wand.

"A corrupt Auror, one that left a lot of evidence behind. Harry is already putting the offenses together so he can take you in. You've been caught." Hermione pressed a hand to Draco's in an attempt to stop him from casting the one spell that would make this all worse.

"Potter?" Brighton scoffed. "He won't be able to charge me with anything and even if he did, I know how to bribe my way out of it. Just like you did, boy."

"Yes. See, Hermione?" He was smirking but there was no life in it. "Exactly like I told you. He doesn't deserve a trial. He doesn't deserve my mercy."

"You can't kill me." Brighton laughed, gazing around the foyer. "We are in Malfoy Manor, all the evidence would point to you."

"But that's just it, Brighton. No one can prove my identity, because no one can break the glamour. Not even you." He raised his wand, a curse on his lips and Hermione screamed.


	21. The Lull

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry does his job, which is not exactly what Draco had in mind.

From the open door, the night air rolled over the group in the foyer of Malfoy Manor, rustling clothes and hair. The after-smell of curses lingered in the atmosphere before them and smoked sizzled off the holes left from stray hexes. A few pieces of stone had crumbled around one particularly bad impact and turned black. Crackling up the stairs with a vicious intensity was a blue spell that had scorched the area it shocked red hot. Draco had probably been the one to cast that.

A groaning yelp sounded from the base of the steps and three red-clad men lifted the bound form of one Winfred Brighton, who struggled against his bonds with half-formed declarations of vengeance. There was a cut across his brow and three or four holes in his robes where he had narrowly been missed. His wand hand, however, was severely burned from Draco's curse.

Standing with his wand held down to his side and a fierce frown on his bespectacled face, Harry Potter ordered the Aurors to report back to the Ministry and a pretty little holding cell laid out just for the man they held between them. A broken wand was crunching together in his palm, a hint of dragon heartstring peeking out of the chipped end. She had never seen him so ruthless and she had traveled the woods of the world with him trying to hunt down a vile despotic wizard's soul fragments. Every trace of the kind-hearted Harry she had seen her whole childhood was gone in favor of the more mature, Moody-esque, Auror.

She was across the foyer, on the ground by the entrance to the downstairs parlor, healing a deep cut on Draco's cheek from debris. Hermione brushed the hair back from his face gently as she finished and helped him back to his feet. One of the Aurors' preliminary spells had knocked him down.

The group Harry had brought with him were unrefined, but well enough at their jobs. She guaranteed that Harry would have them all working at the highest caliber if he were ever granted the Head Auror position. With Brighton out of the running for fraud, corruption, bribing and murder, he stood more than a good chance. The crackling from the stairs abruptly ended as Harry cast the counter at it. The wood cooled immediately with the night air.

She gave Draco another once over and finally met his eyes. He looked furious and she wasn't strong enough to stop him from charging up to Harry.

"You should have let me have him, Potter! He was my kill!" The pureblood shoved Harry backwards but the Boy-Who-Lived simply stuffed the former Auror's wand into his pocket and crossed his arms. "You couldn't save my father and now you take the murderer away from me; is there no end to your meddling?"

Harry laid a hand on Draco's shoulder so calmly that even the angered man had to pause.

"I can't pretend that I know what you're going through. My father was dead before I could even love him and I lost nearly every other fatherly figure before I was able to fully love them either. But, Draco, you have a mother that loves you, a mother that is in as much pain as you are, if not more. The last thing she needs is for you to end up in Azkaban for murder.

"It hurts you to think you missed out on revenge, but the cost of revenge hurts more than what caused you to seek it out. Hate me if it makes you feel better, but open your eyes to the truth. Killing Brighton wasn't going to bring your father back or cure you of guilt." Harry sighed and started for the door. "I did you a favor; deal with it." The door shut softly with Hermione's wave goodbye lost in the wind.

Draco was silent for a moment, then he brushed past her to his mother, who he helped up the stairs. Narcissa had begun to weep again and the sound slowly faded as Draco led her around the corner. Hermione was at a loss. If Harry hadn't come in...she didn't want to think of what would have happened. The parlor was behind her so she turned around and found a seat with the least amount of work involved. The cushion of the couch was like a dream but she felt heavy and tired emotionally. The house elves that inevitably had to exist here were nowhere to be found just when she was willing to bend her rules to ask for something to drink.

All she had wanted when she started this whole thing was to research what her boss had told her to. How come every time she set out to do something, it always went terribly wrong? Was it some sort of defect? If it wasn't in a book or in the scribbled margins, could she not navigate it safely? Hermione laughed at herself. She had done so many things that no one had even thought about putting in their diaries, much less widely read tomes. But even though she knew she could weave the choppy waters of life, she wondered why she hadn't been able to stop Brighton sooner. Lucius hadn't done a thing to deserve her help...but that didn't mean he deserved the Kiss. No one deserved that.

It seemed she sat there for quite a bit of time, just staring into the middle distance, before Draco came to stand in front of her. Her eyes trailed up his torso to his eyes, which were grey once more, and she offered him a soft smile. He didn't move though, until she patted the space beside her. He hesitated, then sat and turned left to wind himself around her. He nuzzled his head into her chest and sighed.

"Would you love me even if I had killed that slimy fool?" His voice was muffled against her skin and he seemed just as tired as she felt.

"I don't see why not. It's only because I'm a Gryffindor that I stopped you. That and because it would have severed your soul."

"Is my soul really worth all that trouble?" Tears made his voice thick and she was forced to lay on her side from his increasing weight.

"Apparently, otherwise I would have stood by and let you hex him once or twice...or thrice." She pressed a hand to his head and made to say more, but he was already fast asleep. Hermione shifted to get up and leave, and mired herself further beneath him. He curled his arms tighter around her and rubbed his tear-stained face across the fabric of her shirt. The sight of him so unguarded made her smile through her own exhaustion and she closed her eyes. Sleep was not too far behind.


	22. The Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione wakes up in Malfoy Manor.

It wasn't the feeling of being watched that roused her, but rather the unruly cacophony of at least twenty peacocks squawking in and out of unison. She went to turn over onto her back as her arm had somehow gotten beneath her and fallen asleep, but she pressed into something warm mid-movement.

The solid outline of a male body behind her reminded her where she was and in some half-asleep urge she grasped at his hand around her waist. Draco stretched like a cat only to lay his head over hers and sigh. Hermione never knew someone could be so warm.

"Good morning." He softly kissed her neck, then her ear. "Glad you're still here."

"Where was I going to go?" The arm not around her waist was under her head like a pillow, tucked under her chin and gripping her opposite shoulder. It was possessive, but reassuring.

"Away. Far away from me and my tragedies. I can't be fun to be around."

Hermione laughed, turning over as best she could so she faced him. "Malfoys shouldn't be down on themselves...it's against nature."

He smiled. "You flatter me, surely." He drew her closer and his lips found a way to quiet her for a moment.

"I don't want to be anywhere else, Draco. I like being here, with you." Hermione laid her head back under his chin so she could hear his heartbeat.

Someone cleared their throat and Hermione glanced sideways to see who. Narcissa, dressed in a beautiful dark pink witches robe, stood with her arms crossed and narrowed eyes. Immediately, Hermione disengaged and sat up; Draco followed slowly, nodding to his mother. His laid-back response made her haste resemble guilt, she realized after a moment.

"Good morning, mother." He ran a hand through his hair sleepily as he yawned. She didn't answer him, but stepped forward, eyes like sharp diamonds as they fixed themselves on Hermione.

"Our deal was that you would break the glamour, not that you would seduce my son." the woman's voice was colder than ice and she seemed a second away from ripping Hermione off the couch.

"Mother," Draco said, throwing his legs over the side so he could stand.

"You let them take my husband, but I will not let you take my son!" Narcissa was breaking apart, Hermione could see, and she kept herself silent. Grief needed an outlet, a way to be portioned so as not to overcome the bereaved. During the aftermath of the war, Hermione had seen more than her fair share of arguments that were based in nothing more than too much sorrow all at once. An abundance of pain could sometimes birth anger.

"Mother, don't take this out on her. She tried her best..."

"And it wasn't enough!" Her eyes were unsteady and kept gazing at the ceiling as though a vision appeared to her there. "I knew I could never trust a mudblood. I knew what these creatures were capable of." She hugged her son as he came nearer to her and tears were running down her cheeks. After a moment, she pulled back and gazed with beatific eyes at Draco. "You are all that is left of your father aside from memories. I won't let you slip away with mudbloods in some Amortentia haze."

Draco stepped away and frowned. "Mother, stop calling her that. Hermione's blood has nothing to do with what happened."

"Mud dirties everything it touches. Her blood has everything to do with it."

"I love her, Mother. Her blood be damned." Draco gazed to Hermione and there was a lightness she hadn't felt for years in her chest. If it were possible for a couple words to make her heart shiver, then shiver it did. The emotion was stronger, though, in his eyes and she felt herself smile.

"Get out." Narcissa's voice was low and frantic. Gazing back and forth between them, she seemed to grow incensed. "Get out of my home. Now!"

Hermione paused, but nodded and turned to go. She knew that confrontation would defeat whatever peace she wished to make here, so she went with the best option. Retreating now would save her the trouble of mending fences later. Though she and the pureblood woman had not been frolicking in the woods together, they had reached an amiable relationship, one which was not dependant on life or death. Perhaps it had been a ploy by the woman to help her son, but Hermione refused to believe the worst of Narcissa. She didn't know where that faith came from but she held onto it with both hands.

She made it to the door before Draco caught up. "She doesn't mean what she's saying."

"I'm not offended, Draco. She just lost her husband. I understand."

"How are you so calm? Most women would be in a state." He was half-smiling.

"You build up a tolerance to sicknesses when you catch them young, the same idea applies to living with loss. When you face it every day for a few years, you learn how to live with it peacefully. After the war, I spent a lot of time consoling widows, daughters and sisters. Also, fathers, brothers and...grieving sons." She gave him a stare and saw him close down his aloof attitude.

"I don't need reminding...just let me forget." He cleared his throat, but the tears came anyway.

"You can't forget your father, Draco, and I know you wouldn't want to." She wiped a stream of salty liquid away from his cheek. "I know it sounds masochistic, but the only way to get over the pain is to go through it. Grief is like a hurricane, with gale force winds that can knock down houses, but if you just endure long enough, it will end. Now the aftermath might be devastating, but you can always rebuild and this time you can make it stronger. Humans are a lesson in nature; we suffer, we struggle, but with every loss we grow better and more resistant to defeat. It's how we continue to live, Draco."

"You'll stick around, though...until she's better?"

"Until both of you are better." She kissed him and he seemed desperate to keep her there but she didn't want to defeat her own purpose. "But my presence will only make it harder to heal." She said, laying her head on his chest.

"Not for me." He was just as warm as he was on the couch and Hermione found it nearly impossible to leave. Nearly.

"After the storm, I'll come back. I still have to break that glamor."

"But you can. Marry me and it will be broken." He was smiling and she didn't want to have to be the one to obliterate it.

"Draco..." She sighed past her own giddiness, then groaned in frustration. "Why is that so tempting?" Hermione shook her head and stepped back. "If you still mean that after the storm, then..." she kissed him as hard as she could and opened the door. "Then, we'll see."

"Sounds like a yes to me." He said, just as she shut the door. One of the albino peacocks strutting around puffed his tail feathers at her, his curious eyes blinking. Hermione took off for the gate, smiling from ear to ear.


	23. The Photo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione's photographer stumbles onto a secret no one was meant to find.

Her flat was sparse to her as she landed inside its familiar warmth. She had expected, perhaps foolishly, to see thick carpets under luxury couches and delicate lamps hung on artfully designed walls. She felt completely outside herself. One night in Malfoy Manor and she had already been brainwashed.

A few letters sat on her table and she could tell Milne, Harry's new owl, had been here just by the broken ends of her owl treats. She always snapped the middle into her mouth and left the ends to roll in sad circles around themselves in the tray. When Hermione neglected to buy more, Milne would then work her way methodically through the tips until it was clean.

She made to collect her letters, but the sun shining reminded her that she hadn't showered since earlier the day before. Her bathroom was much more natural to her than Philip's or the Leaky Cauldron's. The hot water was amazing on her skin and while her sinuses opened, so did her mind.

Hermione made many plans and scrapped just as much as she created, but eventually she had decided what she would do to begin her time away from Draco and the band.

She had lots of connections with people in the Wizarding World whose job it was to find people. Being that she had had to be on the frontlines of the after-war bids for attention, she had become adept at using her 'friends' to get closer to certain key movers-and-shakers. One such person was her own cameraman, Peter Caras. He had just gotten on the Knight Bus when she lit up his pocket mirror. She had bewitched it for him because waiting on owl or the like was dreadfully slow and unreliable.

She heard a rustle as he dug it from his pocket and flicked it open. He was holding onto a pole with white-knuckled fingers and his wide face was stressed.

"Morning to you, Jean. What's new?" he smiled and she saw his image list sideways before being up-righted.

"I need you to help me find someone. Can you come to my flat instead of the office?" The small round mirror acted as both video and audio. She'd gotten the idea from a muggle movie she had seen once about the future. Ron had been staring with a blank, uncomprehending face at the flashing images. Arthur had taken the movie for himself.

He yelled his change of plans to the bus driver and suddenly he flew backwards. Within a couple moments, he had come back to his spot, gazing seriously at her through the mirror.

"Who are we trying to find?" She had never seen anyone so calm on the Knight Bus.

"A Mister Wileaux. He possibly had dealings with Lucius Malfoy."

"Oh. Sorry I couldn't help you with Issac Turin, Annie broke her arm on the new tree house we built her." Peter must have wrapped his legs around the pole because suddenly he was digging through his bag.

"Is she alright?"

"Just fine. Got a lime green teddy to make it all better." He seemed distracted.

"We'll talk when you get here, yeah?" She didn't want to keep him on the line for nothing.

"Sure. See you, Jean." And the mirror went black.

"Who's this Mister Wileaux?" Peter asked as he walked through her door, setting his bag on the nearest table. She had also bewitched his bag so that he could carry all his camera things in a light, manageable way. She did need him to help her a lot with catching actual evidence through pictures.

"Possibly a lawyer, an accountant, or something similar. I believe he possesses Lucius Malfoy's wand."

"Yeah, it's wild in the media about this sudden Kiss. Benson was all over it last night. Seems someone in the Ministry let loose the beans. We've never been so close to the actual event before. He was almost able to get me in there to catch it as it went down." Peter yanked his camera out of the bag. "I did get this one, though. Lucius is looking a bit grey from this angle..." He paused. "I suppose I should destroy it. It was a bit dark in that cell and that Dementor was making it hard to steady the shot."

Hermione's breath caught in her throat and she paused in the act of pouring tea. Brighton had been planning on having the photos plastered all over the Daily Prophet front page. She felt sick, but she took the camera from Peter's hands and looked at the image he had captured.

On his knees, bent back so that his hands brushed his heels, Lucius Malfoy was caught in a scream, his blonde hair lifeless as a shining light was drawn up his throat. She could almost see it leave his mouth as the magical picture played out like a video. Tears blurred the sight of filthy rags on his body and the cold, finality of the stone cell he died in. She shoved the camera back into Peter's hands and sat heavily on the couch.

Her cameraman put the device away and took some of the tea. "Benson thought it was too horrifying for the front page. Why do you want Lucius Malfoy's wand?"

Hermione had forgotten why she had called Peter over for a moment, but she nodded as he put her back on track. She swallowed the thickness in her throat and stood.

"We'll find out once we find him. Can you do it?"

"Of course I can. Want to come along?" She simply nodded again and put on her shoes.

As Peter went through his own contacts and they Apparated from place to place, Hermione couldn't seem to wish away the image burned on her eyelids. It had been a stormy night where he lingered in that cell and the barred window granted him only a little light which did nothing to improve his pallor. His eyes had been hollows, that neither denoted life or seemed to house it anymore as the inner light, his soul, was ripped out his open mouth from his throat. He had shivered against the pull and she could still see it repeating itself as magical pictures were wont to do.

"Was it raining?" She asked Peter, interrupting his conversation with a quiet woman who thrust a piece of paper into his hand and left.

"Raining?"

"Yesterday night." She could hardly believe it had been only a few hours. "Was it raining?"

"Sprinkling, but the sea was in a rage. I had to wear a coat. It's colder on that island than it is here." He read what was written on the paper, then burned it up. "Well, I know where he takes clients. Let's try there."

"Did it even effect you at all, Peter?" He was too composed to have witnessed it first-hand. Why couldn't she seem to believe it?

The tousled sandy hair atop Peter's head was whipping in the highland breeze, which felt much cooler than the slight one in London. His hazel eyes blinked, but he pulled out his camera, which was also one of Hermione's upgrades. Instead of Colin Creevey's chunky one, it was more like a muggle digital, which allowed the photographer to see the photos they had just taken or ones that they had taken before. It still had to be developed like the other cameras, but at least the photos could be scrolled through and erased if they weren't good.

"My mother was the one to give me a camera and to tell me I could do anything. But she was also the first person I ever photographed. The first person I had ever seen Kissed. I took that photo, too." He gave her the camera again, and morbidly, she let her eyes stray over the image.

"Peter, I never knew." She felt like she was speaking to an entirely different person. He had always been the fun-loving family man with stories about his children.

"It wasn't something people needed to know. One thing though," and his finger pointed at the camera. "Her eyes didn't change color. I always thought Lucius Malfoy had grey eyes."

Hermione looked at the picture with something other than horror and caught the light just at the right time to illuminate brown eyes staring in death at the creature before him. Brown eyes in place of grey.

"He does."


	24. The Office

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's just something off about Mister Wileaux.

The office of Mister Wileaux, attorney, was quite average considering the fact that Lucius Malfoy had entrusted his wand to him. Hermione was beginning to doubt that theory, but she had yet to see complete proof. The outer wall was a faded brown stone, the door a crisp bronze color with ordinary golden filigree branching out around the name plate fashioned about eye level on the wood. Hermione could detect no threat from it and, if anything, seemed to feel rather at home as she stepped up to it. There was a wide window to the right of the door, but it had its curtains pulled. She didn't see a reason to be on guard.

Peter had no qualms, however, about pulling his wand as he entered, keeping his eyes focused on the woman behind the front desk. She was stout and resembled Tonks about the face, which made Hermione draw back into herself. It was hard to be reminded of the dead. Smiling as she set an owl back on its course out a small opening in the top of the opposite wall, the woman turned to them.

"No wands in hand, sir. Mister Wileaux would rather duels took place outside." she pulled up a clipboard that had a quill attached and sent it toward them. "Fill out the basic information and I'll send you in the moment he is free."

Hermione caught the paper and read through it as Peter put his wand away. It was just a rundown of basic things: name, age, occupation, reason for visit. Almost like a doctor's form. She filled it out as best she could and sent it back to the woman at the desk.

After sitting about and staring at the fine furnishings for twenty minutes, the office door opened and a tall, straight-backed man walked out, leading a woman who had obviously been crying.

"I will do my best, Madam Corin. Your husband is rather vindictive." The voice was smooth and reassuring, the neatly designed stubble shifting on his sculpted face.

"That's why I need this divorce. I have my children to think of." she gave the man a half-hug and with a deep breath a firmer face appeared. "Good day, Mister Wileaux."

"Please, call me Narcissus."

The woman smiled and took her leave, passing by Peter who had stood immediately. Narcissus Wileaux gazed around his business before setting eyes on the them. He frowned and raised his hand to his short black hair. From his regal stance and Caesar-style hair, she supposed he could have been a Roman soldier if he were simply wearing armor.

"Miss Jean Paige?" The woman behind the desk called out and Hermione hurriedly came nearer.

"Yes."

"Please follow Mister Wileaux." And she stopped Peter with her hand. "She is the only one on the form, you'll have to wait out here."

Hermione nodded to show it was alright and passed by the wonderfully smelling Wileaux to his office. It was just as average and welcoming as the facade of the building, with warm wood furniture and neutral paint. There were two chairs in front of the desk, with soft swirls in gold on the white fabric. A warm hand at her back invited her to one and she sat, watching as the man circled behind his desk and sat as well.

"Miss Paige? It says here you are here about a wand?"

"Yes." She meant to say more, but as he smirked and straightened his collar, she got the strongest wave of recognition which fled as quickly as it came. She immediately went on alert.

"You look familiar. You wouldn't happen to be from the Daily Prophet?" She knew good and well that he knew the answer and narrowed her eyes.

"It would seem so. You wouldn't be hiding behind a glamour, would you?" She hadn't meant to come in guns blazing, but the brown eyes in the picture baited her...as did the grey eyes before her.

"What would give you such an idea?" He interlocked his fingers and smiled lightly.

"Your son, perhaps."

"I have no children." If she hadn't been convinced by the photo Peter had taken and the same feeling Draco's glamour had given her, she would have assumed she had suspected wrong. Not even a flicker passed across his face to tell her other than what he said.

"And he believes he has no father...and your wife believes she had no husband."

"You must be mistaken, Miss Paige. I have neither married nor procreated; these things you are accusing me of have no grounds in reality."

Instead of trying to force him to reveal himself, she sighed and sat back. He was clearly ready for her accusations and he seemed to be pretty keen on proving everything she said was wrong and baseless. She looked to his eyes, which had not changed, which reminded her of Draco and tried a different approach.

"Raping that girl is eating him alive, Lucius. He tries to sing it out, he even told me about her, but nothing will truly ease that burden until he can reveal the truth. Narcissa can't stand not being able to love her son as dearly as she wishes to and making matters worse she has had to continue without you in this torment, believing she will never see you free again." Wileaux's face didn't change, but he hadn't spoken. "You did not have to see the agony she went through when she found out about the Kiss...you don't fully understand how you've hurt them. Perhaps you are alive and free out here, but you have imprisoned them in sorrow to buy your way out."

Tears had sprung to her eyes and she swallowed before continuing. "You even fooled me. I cried for you...after all you had done to my friends over the years, I still felt enough inside of me to weep for you. But Draco shouldn't have to mourn and neither should Narcissa. They have done nothing but love you and support you, even when you were in Azkaban." She paused. "Or when they believed you were in Azkaban."

A quiet moment reigned and she knew she had broken through. He might have been stone, but his family was the one thing he still held behind the glamour. There was conflict and sadness in his eyes.

"Miss Granger, you must understand..." he sat forward and for once she saw something other than a shield. "I was protecting them. Brighton had bribed his way to a place in power where even I couldn't escape and he was going after my son. He could have taken me, but he was not going to take my son. I did what I thought best."

"But you could have shown yourself to them alone, you could have told them somehow that you were alright. They're broken because of this Kiss."

"I could not risk it. Brighton is smarter than I was willing to believe. Until he is in Azkaban or dead, I cannot break my persona here for anything. He has eyes as I do and they are just as sharp."

Hermione sat up straighter and nodded. "I understand, but they don't. I love Draco too much to watch him suffer like this."

Lucius behind his guise frowned. "You love him?"

She hadn't realized what she said. Hesitating, she looked away.

"But you are a mudblood. How can you possibly...?"

"He isn't just his name or blood, Lucius. We are all so much more."

"Is he willing to marry you to break the glamour?"

She felt a smile creep on her face. "Until they know you are safe and Brighton is in Azkaban, it won't matter if he's willing or not. Brighton can still find a way to hurt him and he shouldn't make decisions until he knows about you. It's too dangerous to break the glamour now."

"Then he is willing." He shook his head and pulled a piece of paper out of his desk. As he put his quill to it, he spoke. "I do admit that a mudblood was the last thing I wanted him to marry, but..." A look of pain crossed his face. "If the war has taught me anything, it is that blood is better cherished than spilt. Give this to my wife." He handed her the paper that had something wrapped in its middle.

Hermione stood. "Harry has caught Brighton, Lucius. I will make sure we have enough proof to put him away."

"Championed by a Gryffindor..." he smirked. "What has this world become?"

"Oh," Hermione stopped at the office door. "Who died in your place?"

Lucius brought himself to his feet and shelved a file that had been on his desk. "A precious fellow who had been bribed out of his own worth. I do believe his name was Alden Brighton. My son and I paid him quite a few Galleons for freedom, but he didn't feel full enough to keep his silence in his brother's company. Poor Winfred."


	25. The Feather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The storm may not be needed after all.

Hermione had left Peter at the Ministry, where he was going to continue working until sometime late in the night. She had her own job ahead of her. She had expected the wards to be against her and it proved to be the correct thought as she approached the property. It threw off little stinging jolts when she tested her toes along its edge. She couldn't break through and neither did she want to, she wanted to be let in.

The peacocks were still milling about and the breeze that had been little more than a breath was now strong and indecisive. It pulled at her skin as she hadn't worn a thick coat, rather a light jacket and she wondered how she could go about getting them to at least come talk at the gate, if not to let her in.

She didn't have to wait too long as when she had paced by the barrier for the fourth time, the front door opened and Draco stepped out. She saw that he was creeping, quickly, across the path to the gate with glancing eyes that watched the house behind him. He was wearing something heavily influenced by muggle clothing, though with its own magical flair. The pants were black and green plaid as was the vest over the black shirt he wore, but over all was a lightweight wizard's robe. He wasn't wearing shoes.

"Hermione?" He asked, opening the gate.

"Hey, Draco." She came closer, but halted at the stinging sensation.

"Do you think we're better already?" He leaned against the metal and she took a step back from the stinging ward.

"Maybe after I come inside?"

"Oh, yeah. I'm sorry about that." He flicked his wand in a certain pattern and she felt the ward ease so she could join him by the gate. "Mother made sure you wouldn't be able to enter again...well, unless I was around at the time." He tapped his temple with his wand, then stowed it away. "Why are you back so soon? Not that I'm complaining, of course."

"I found out something...really I'm not sure why I didn't just do this before." The sun was on its way down and the sky had begun to darken. She started off towards the large manor, clutching the parchment Lucius had given her. "I found Mister Wileaux."

"Really? Did he give you the wand?"

"No...but he gave me something better. Can you go get your mother?"

Draco hesitated. "I don't think that's the brightest idea. She did just kick you out this morning."

They were now standing back inside the parlor and Hermione found a seat with both access to exits and a wide view of the room. She supposed Lucius would have sat here if he had guests.

"It's very important that she be here."

"Well, I would try not to rile her. I'm not sure how you'll manage to get back to Potter if she gets too furious." He shed his outer robe and rolled up his sleeves.

"Hopefully what I have to say will be a shield for me." Hermione sighed and found a comfortable way to sit that would also allow her to reach her wand if necessary. During the war and the hectic time after, she had made a pocket in the thigh of her pants to be a wand holster, which Harry had then spread across the Auror Department. She angled that thigh for a cautious reassurance.

"What is she doing here?" If Hermione leaned slightly, she could see Narcissa coming down the stairs with a slow, angry pace, her face slowly becoming a mask of fury.

Draco was beside her, his arms crossed. "Mother, could you pretend to be aloof to her? Your malice is making it hard to breathe."

"Mudbloods hardly deserve my best lies, Draco. She decides to make herself a nuisance and I decide to allow her the truth. It's tiring to pretend we have anything to be civil over."

"Mother, stop this." Draco was now behind the woman and he met Hermione's eyes. Narcissa stomped somehow elegantly into the parlor and opened her mouth to spew what Hermione guessed was more insults.

"I have something for you from Mister Wileaux." She held out her hand, the parchment presented in offering.

"A piece of paper?" She scoffed, her chin rising in haughty anger. "Mudbloods have no sense of decency."

Frustrated, Hermione stood and dropped her hand to her side. She met the woman's eyes strongly, which garnered a curious expecting glare in return.

"Look, the only thing about my blood that resembles mud is your perception of it. Truth be told, with all the inbreeding and incest, one would assume purebloods were actually muddled, not muggleborns. And besides," she continued. "If there was a single thing different between my blood and yours, don't you think at least one of the brilliant wizarding minds would have found irrefutable evidence a long time ago?"

It was quiet for a moment and Hermione lifted her hand again. "I didn't come here to argue over blood or make you believe I care anymore what you think of me. I came to give you this and leave you in peace. So if you could attempt to see something other than an inferior being in front of you, this paper is for you. It might explain something, I suppose."

Narcissa's glare had lessened and she pursed her lips as she delicately removed the parchment from Hermione's hand. The woman unfolded the message and caught a pale white feather as it fluttered out of the middle. She gazed at the feather with heavily saddened eyes, then refocused on the words. Hermione had learned to read lips for court proceedings and interviews, because sometimes people said the most important things without making a sound. She followed Narcissa's as she read to herself.

"Dearest Wife,

As you know, from times countless before, there is little of love one can send through ink and parchment. I hear from Miss Granger that my ruse has done the worst and struck you as it was meant to strike my enemies and I cannot help but feel horribly cruel for having let it. You know how I worry about you and Draco...and I thought my absence would ease the trouble my presence caused.

Four years I have lived in some idealistic notion that all would be simple for you without me. I surmise I thought of your love for me as less than my love for you and gave over to the idea that you were better off on your own. Oddly, I find I love you more for the anguish Miss Granger says I caused you.

I guess I mean something to you after all.

How foolish I've been. Well, my love, I wouldn't want you to linger in sorrow on my account. I live. Now let me hope you aren't crying over me. Your smile has always been more beautiful than your tears.

L."

The pureblood woman stepped back and happened to land securely on a plush couch. She was crying, Hermione could see and smiling as well. At first she seemed pleased, then terrified, then she pressed the letter to her lips and then over her heart. Draco sat beside his mother and she pulled him close.

"He's alive. He tricked us all, but he's alive." Narcissa had never looked so happy, not as far as Hermione could recollect.

Draco pulled away, frowning and gazing back and forth between his mother and Hermione.

"Who's alive?"

"Your father."

"He's living under the guise of Mister Wileaux. Narcissus Wileaux." Hermione added, softly.

Narcissa chuckled. "Foolish, indeed."

Draco smirked and if one looked close enough, his eyes teared up. "Then who died yesterday?"

"Alden Brighton."

The two on the couch began to laugh and Hermione realized she had never seen them so human before. Well, Draco perhaps, but Narcissa had always been distant, even when she broke a little to talk about her son. The moment when Narcissa thought her husband dead had been one exception, though.

"Wonderful!" Narcissa muttered, then she stood and hurried back up the stairs.

"Mother, where are you going?" Draco seemed in a good humor.

"I'm going to get dressed, then I'm going to slap your father very hard." Narcissa's voice echoed down the stairs and into the parlor. Draco laughed all over again.


	26. The War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione and Brighton remember the war quite differently.

Hermione had seen trials take hours to be put together and she had also seen them take months. It all really depended on the public's thirst for freedom or punishment and the amount of favor any given leader would gain from the outcome. She hadn't really known Brighton; he was one of those background figures that was either smart enough or scared enough to run when Voldemort made himself a power circuit. But she had had to endure endless stories of the man as the Ministry scrambled to decide what he was worth in the scheme of their control base.

According to the tale she had heard from a woman in the Atrium, Winfred Brighton and his younger brother Alden, were the only survivors of their once nine member family. Hailing from Glasgow, they had moved to a small village in Europe just in time to encounter the horror of an uprising Grindelwald. Their mother, father, three elder sisters and two elder brothers were all killed. Wilhelm, their father, had trod on the wrong toes and the heat had come to land on the entire family.

Winfred and Alden would have been lost as well, but when the dark wizards had come to pull them from their beds to join the rest of the family pleading for their lives in the living room, Winfred had snuck out the window. Alden, unknown to his brother, had followed. They had been taken in by a kind lady on her way to her home country of England. They had then attended Hogwarts, though they were meant to attend Durmstrang, and excelled. Neither had married, the woman had said.

Hermione had been separated by the flood of workers coming in and had not got to hear the rest of the story. But it did set her mind to thinking.

Harry was nearly impossible to reach since the whole insane business began but she was still able to talk him into taking her to Brighton's cell after lunch. It was highly unprofessional and frankly, she had told him, playing favorites, but had thanked him all the same as he shut the door behind himself.

The cells in the Ministry were dark and resembled Azkaban as she had seen in pictures and described. Though she had done quite a lot during each trial after the war, she had never actually gone to the wretched island. She supposed she would just be reminded why Sirius had always lapsed into thick silences when she said something to ignite his memories.

Brighton was in cell number four, though only one other was occupied. Hermione stood in front of the door and gazed through the foot-wide square at the suspended Auror. Until he was prosecuted, he couldn't be fired on just the charges. He was leaning against the opposite wall and his stony eyes met hers quietly.

"I had thought you were better than Potter, Miss Granger. All those adventures pasted over everything of note from the war and only you shined as the one who did anything. Weasley was a sidekick with less brains than the hero and the hero couldn't see further than he was told. But you," he said, crossing his arms. "they always say you shouldn't meet your heroes."

"I was never a hero, Brighton. And I didn't do a single thing in the hopes that I would be famous. I was eleven when Voldemort came to collect what he claimed was his through one of my teachers. I was twelve when I was petrified by a Basilisk that would have happily eaten me if I hadn't remembered to bring my mother's mirror with me to school that year. I was thirteen when an escaped convict become the only man in Harry's life that was willing to tell the truth about the past. I was fourteen when I was put under water for a stupid tournament and defamed as Harry's supposed girlfriend.

"I was fifteen when I had to watch Voldemort with my own eyes as he showed what he could do with the connection he and Harry shared, when I had to defend myself against full-grown wizards, when I had to endure the blight that was Umbridge. I was sixteen when I had to watch Dumbledore's body being buried and endure the harsh reality that I could not escape Harry's fate. And I was seventeen, Brighton, when I had to fight for my life because some half-blood bastard decided I wasn't good enough for this world." She didn't realize she was crying until one of the tears met her tongue in a clash of bitter salt and warmth.

"If that sounds like some glorious story of success and good over evil than you live in some fairyland. Every year after the war, every month, every week, every day, every hour, every second, I had to cope with the fact that there was no such thing as happy endings and joyous parties. After war there are only dead or broken bodies, dead or broken hearts, and dead or broken souls. I had to force myself to eat and to sleep, because every time I closed my eyes I saw someone I loved or hated lying in a pool of their own blood for selfishness. We fought and died for peace...not for this."

"You can't have peace with murderers and thieves. You can't have dreams with villains on the loose. You can only have war and nightmares." His dog-like face was taut with his words and he pulled himself to his feet. "I was doing the world a favor. You attended all the trials, you heard their confessions. The Malfoys were no better than the Lestranges or the Averys. Or the Notts. They all bled their devotion to the monster and they pledged their wands to his cause. The Mark is only the suit they wore to frighten the people who saw it. The real mark is on their souls. They chose to follow and they chose to torture. I will not let them slip away into some undeserved bliss because they had second thoughts when their leader was in his downfall."

"And you think murder for murder will solve any of our problems? Do you think becoming what you loathe will destroy it?" Hermione stared down at him and felt her anger rise. "You didn't have to live through what I lived through, Brighton. I had to bury more people than you could imagine and I had to mourn through the lens of a camera because I was the Golden Girl that completed some fanciful Trio of saviors. I chose to sit through those trials and I chose to hear those confessions because the only way I could cement in my own mind that any of it really happened was to hear it from another person's lips. Because I couldn't trust my own mind anymore."

She had always been able to run from the horror by drowning herself in it. Sometimes the trials were the only way she could try to feel normal. When she thought of it, she wondered if the only reason she had been pushing to break Draco's glamour in the beginning was to have another reason to attend a hearing. With Harry and Ginny's wedding coming up, she had been feeling more and more desperate for a prosecution. Normal people wanted blood after crimes, she had thought. But Hermione had known all along that wasn't true. Not for her, at least. She and Ron had abandoned their budding love because she was unable, back in the early days of recovery, to see any real end to the conflict. Then the trials had begun...and she found a refuge in detachment.

"And I became a reporter for the simple fact that I had to look the people in the eye that did this to me and my family and my friends and force myself to see the truth..." she continued, "that they weren't demons, they weren't otherworldly. They were just like you and me and they killed for the thrill of it. That they ended lives because it felt right to them to do so. That no matter what the papers wrote, these people were human. Humans did this to humans, Brighton. There is no revenge for that betrayal, I realize that now."

"I want them to face justice!" He screamed and spittle shot out of his mouth.

"There is no justice." Hermione muttered, trying and failing to wipe the tears from her face. "There is only what is left of the survivors that can heal enough to have hope in the world again. No amount of time in Azkaban, no amount of Kisses, will ever be enough to justify what happened. You can kill every Death Eater and every corrupt official but when you wake up from your righteous haze there will still be a hollow inside your chest and there will still be families in graves under headstones that aren't big enough to tell the story that person had to tell."

"I refuse to give up just because the war is over. Blood was shed and someone should pay for that."

"But we do!" She cried sharply. "Every day we live, we pay for it. It's time you saw the world for what it really is, Brighton. It's the victims that always pay for the crime, especially when the attacker couldn't be happier with what they did. Your misguided attempt at justice won't ever change what happened and I am too tired of watching the people I love suffer."

"If you can love those creatures than it wasn't you I was fighting for." Brighton stepped back and sat on his cot.

"If you can't understand forgiveness, than it wasn't you I was fighting for either." She shook her head. "And to think I came down here to ask about your life...you deserve what you get regardless."

"As do you, Miss Granger. As do you."


	27. The Problem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brighton proves to be a little more effective than previously assumed.

The show must go on and it did. Draco had left Malfoy Manor for his next show, this time outside of the London mecca. She would have gone with him, but she felt there was no better time than now to write the article she would present to Benson. The band had given their acceptance of the idea and Draco had told her to include as much as she could. Hopefully Brighton's trial could be moved to a closer date and she would be able to corroborate the evidence against him with her article. Or perhaps she could simply write the article and chance the possibility that he might get out of the fire, leaving her in a position very similar to the Lola Corey/White Teeth embarrassment.

For the simple fact that she couldn't decide what to do, she was writing two versions of the article, one for after a trial and one for before. If Brighton's hearing was past her deadline, she would have to make do with the slim chance of being wrong in the scheme of things.

The rest of her colleagues had checked out for the day, but she had all of her resources in the office, so she chose to stay overnight. She was always good at working past the proper hour anyway. Hermione blamed her training in school during exams. It was quiet in her office, which was separate from the main body and quite nice since at Hogwarts she had always had to contend with others for space and seclusion.

"There's a problem, Hermione." A voice called out in the silence, disturbing the scratching of her quill. She looked up from her writing and frowned. The door to her office was ajar and a messy head of hair hovered in its opening.

"How so?"

"I have folders full of paperwork and proof, but we have no witnesses." Harry slipped inside the room and shut the door. She had to conjure a chair since hers was the only one in the space.

"That's not possible, there has to be someone." The parchment on her desk rolled back into itself to form a neat scroll as she let it go. Her quill fell to the side with drips of splattered ink.

"No, not a single soul. He has either killed them, erased them or put them away." He sat with a heavy thump, leaning so that he could lay his head on the back of the chair and close his eyes.

"Well, get the people he put in Azkaban. Their testimonies can be used, just like they were in the war."

"No, they were used against other Death Eaters to prove the person on trial was evil and wrong. Brighton's word would be received better in the public's eyes than that of murders and villains. He's got a leg up just from upholding the law so that everyone could see. I need something concrete."

"Like what?" she asked, trying to think of any way to help. She was not going to allow him to run loose on the streets without at least putting up a fight.

"A free man's testimony. I need someone who can give undeniable evidence against him that meshes with all the allegations. He has a brother that was dirty. I always hear tales about him from the war, except no one has seen him since the trials began. His memories alone would put Winfred away."

"That won't be possible, Harry." She felt a sinking in her stomach and she sighed.

"Why not? Since Kingsley put into effect the use of memories as hard evidence if no tampering can be proven then Alden Brighton is our best bet."

"No. He was our best bet." She ran her hand over the back of her neck. "He was just Kissed recently."

Harry narrowed his eyes as he tried to think, then they widened. "So Lucius is...?" When she nodded, he whistled. "Clever...but it doesn't help us. If Lucius is alive and Alden is dead, we are back to our starting point and severely lacking proof."

"But Lucius could testify, couldn't he?"

Harry put his elbows to his knees and his head in his hands. "Not if he plans on staying free. By law, he should be dead. If everyone finds out he is alive then he was breaking the law when he escaped and put Alden in his place. Add on top of that murder of a Ministry official and he's locked away for good, giving Brighton's defense ample supply of sympathy in the courtroom. He did just lose his brother by the same criminal he was just trying to rid the world of."

Hermione couldn't believe it, after all he had done, he could really get away with it. She sighed again and stood. She wished she had had a recorder on her when she had talked with him in the cell.

"What about Draco?"

"What about him?" Harry was thinking through her words and she could see him attempting to follow her thought process.

"He could testify with the memories of Brighton harassing him, maybe even Narcissa. If there is enough there, we could prove Lucius innocent and then reveal he is alive...which would make it possible to allow his memories to be used. Then even Alden's true nature would come to light and Brighton wouldn't have a leg to stand on."

"Sounds good, but how are you going to get Draco to testify if the only thing people see is Issac Turin?"

"Lucius. He cast the glamour and if he removes it then Draco can finally confess."

"But you said yourself that Lucius wanted Draco to marry and swear never to confess to break the glamour. Do you really think Lucius will back out of that now, when everything he has done is at stake?" There was blatant disbelief on Harry's face, but she could see just a little hope.

"I could try to appeal to him again. To show him what he really stands to lose. He has to be smart enough to realize the risk he would be taking by not removing the glamour."

"There's an even greater risk by removing it. But if you think you can change his mind...I say go for it." Hermione smiled at her friend and grabbed her jacket. The article would have to wait a little longer.

She left Harry at the elevators and Apparated as soon as she was outside. The office looked closed for the night, but she advanced anyway, ready to call out when the door opened and Lucius in his dark-haired Narcissus-guise stepped out.

"Lucius, I need to speak with you."

He turned halfway and offered an amused smirk. "Miss Granger, now is hardly the time. As you can see, I am closed."

"Yes, but it's about Draco."

"Loose lips are not attributes of discretion. Perhaps we can discuss him somewhere else." He locked up the place and turned to face her. She felt it as soon as it left the person's wand. Instincts, which had only been strengthened after the war, kicked in and she threw her body in a twisted curve, falling below the fiery green spell as she both knocked Lucius down and cast a body bind curse at the attacker with two back-to-back spells.

The action proved rather awkward for her body and she fell to her back. A smoking hole was burned into the once handsome name plate on the door.

"Only a matter of time. That bastard reaches further than his station even in chains." Lucius sounded murderous and Hermione scrambled to her feet. She beat him to the attacker and had to grip the glamored man's wand hand before he did something inexcusable. Like cursing the person on the ground. The red-haired man locked magically in a grimace across his blue-eyed face.

"Ron?"


	28. The Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fear comes in many forms and is sometimes perceived as bravery.

He tried to flee when she removed the body bind, but Lucius did something unexpected and physically held him back. Hermione didn't want to hurt Ron, but she needed to find out what was going on. Though it was quite obvious to anyone, she could not be entirely sure it was what it appeared to be. People had proven they were marvelous actors when something they loved was at stake. With all the glamours and lies she had discovered lately, she could hardly be sure of anything obvious.

"Ron? Ron, are you listening?" When he didn't speak and struggled against his captor, gripping the short black hair and pushing against his regal face, Lucius punched him in the nose. Ron fell limp and the pureblood man started to drag him back to the office. "Don't hit him! We don't have answers, Lucius! Give him a chance to speak."

"He forfeited his right to have that privilege when he tried to kill me with Avada Kedavra. If I beat him within an inch of his life, I think it justified. The last person to throw that at me had no nose..." he flicked his wand to open the door and point to Ron's face. "Perhaps I prefer it that way."

He dropped her friend to the ground and then spun to re-ward the door. Ron crawled away, his eyes wide and empty. Hermione crouched in front of him and pulled her wand. "Finite Incantem." She whispered and watched as he blinked hurriedly. He gazed around confused and suddenly seemed to remember a very important thought.

"We're down by sixty! Eolan can't make that up, I have to get in there." He tried to stand, but she pressed him back. Ron violently shoved back at her. "Where's my broom?" He went to find his feet again but his left foot slid from underneath him and he yelped in pain. Hermione saw from his up-turned trouser leg that he had a cast around his shin. Harry hadn't mention Ron being hurt during one of his games...

"Ron, stop, listen to me." She held his face and put herself in front of his eyesight no matter where he looked.

"No. The Cannons need me!" He somehow wobbled onto his feet and stumbled sideways as he tried to regain his balance.

Lucius sighed calmly, almost in boredom. "He must have been cursed around the fifth."

"Why would you say that?" She stood back up to her full height, her wand at the ready. Ron seemed dizzy and he bumped into a couple of the chairs in the lobby.

"One of the chasers on their team comes from a wealthy family that is falling apart from greed. He had been coming to me to protect his assets. Around the fifth, he had an appointment to discuss the risk his wife presented because of her relationship with his father. During that meeting he was constantly complaining about the game he had just come from. Apparently a rogue bludger is responsible for that." Lucius pointed at the cast.

"Who's Eolan?"

"Eolan Cole. Weasley's emergency replacement. The Cannons lost the game ten minutes after he mounted his broom."

Hermione breathed out of her nose. "Ron, do you remember talking to Winfred Brighton?"

The red-haired man groaned and gazed upwards as though he was going to be sick. "'Mione, where are we?"

She went to answer, but Ron slid into a seat and fell unconscious. She shook her head and crossed her arms to think.

"Why did you come to talk of Draco?" Lucius stepped in front of her and she refocused her eyes to meet his.

"Harry came by my office tonight. It appears all witnesses are either dead, gone or imprisoned. Without solid proof, a memory or some other defense, we have little to hold against Brighton. I thought perhaps you could speak against him, but Harry thinks you'd only endanger your freedom. So Draco is the only one who can help...the only one who can put Brighton away for good."

Lucius nodded. "And how do you suppose to have him do that? The glamor will render any appearances void and his word means nothing when his memories are that of Draco Malfoy. There is no telling what they will assume from his thoughts alone."

Hermione could feel the stubbornness exuding from the man in front of her. "You have the ability to break the glamour, Lucius. You are the only one that can do this. Draco wants to confess and his confession will free all of you."

"My son is all that will remain here when I die. Wizards live long lives and can cure nearly every sickness, but death can still come fetch them home. I have done...condemnable things in my pursuit of power and status and I have done worse to protect my own. If I leave this life today, even through all these crimes, I will depart with a lightness in my heart because my wife and son are safe. This glamour," he whispered, his back to her. "it is my only assurance that Draco can live without the words of other pressing like swords into his back. I thought once that another man could provide the safety I had always promised my family, but I see now that only I can ensure it."

"Lucius, if we put Brighton away, Draco can live as you would have him live. If Brighton is found guilty, your son can live and love and continue what you set out to do. And his family will know what peace can be, Lucius, and the true importance of blood."

The grey eyes in the regal face before her shined with fear, something she had never seen in him.

"How do I trust a mudblood with all that I have in this world?" He was broken in fear and she almost didn't trust herself to speak for the small chance her voice might change his mind irreparably. She dared her own boundaries and touched her hand to his shoulder.

"You don't have to trust my blood. You have to trust me, Hermione Jean Granger. You have to trust that this heart," she pressed her hand against her chest. "is strong enough to stay convicted. That this heart will protect your son."

Lucius broke her gaze and stepped back. "I will not chance my boy, not for anyone. He must marry and he must swear. It is the only way to beat Brighton at his own game."

"Lucius, no." She could hardly believe it. "Please..."

"I have decided." Hermione could see that plainly on the contours of his face. "Now remove Mister Weasley and yourself. I am closed for the day."


	29. The Reverie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reminiscing about times gone by and the things that were lost.

It had been a couple years since she had spent so much time in bars; mostly because the spirit of her freedom had faded with her next article. The smell of alcohol and perfume created its own atmosphere and the choking streams of vibrant colors from lit cigars made of the remaining air some kaleidoscope of self-portraits.

For once she didn't really think to find out where it was she was going, or what could possibly be there waiting once she entered. Her mission, which she had taken upon herself, was more important at the moment. But for the sake of appearing completely unaffected and unworried, lest Brighton had someone tailing her, which she believed he did, she had taken temporary residence at the bar. The bartender seemed to be in the habit of ignoring her for the first ten minutes that she sat there, but she eventually swung by, giving what Hermione asked for in less than thirty seconds.

The sickly sweet sting of alcohol masked by dainty fruit shot past her logic to that ticklish spot in her brain that told her she liked things that were unreasonable. Like the way that the smoke from the cigars in the darker parts of the place created ghost faces and smiling Buddhas when she tilted her head opposite to the sharp florescent lights. Or the way that Draco's voice drifted past every single muffled conversation to pierce her ears so clearly he could have been directly behind her. But she didn't listen to the words tonight.

She knew what she had to do. Lucius had closed the avenues that would have made all these normal processes possible and the last road was one, though tempting after years alone with her burdens, that she wasn't sure she was really ready to see become reality. Let alone the fact that she barely knew the person she said she loved. Sure, she had gone to school with him for most of her childhood and survived the war as he had, but she had done nothing with him.

If he felt happy or sad when it rained, she couldn't tell. If he liked strawberry ice cream or chocolate pecan, she wouldn't be positive she could say. And did he know that sometimes she stared at people and wondered what they had done during the war? Did he know that she would go sit outside in Diagon Alley and play little games in her head where she would tell herself any passerby pedestrian's story?

Take that chaste-looking woman at the base of the stage, clinging to her drink as tightly as she did her purse for example. Hermione would look at her and in a moment think that she wasn't scared of her surroundings...no, she was frightened of what she would do to the people in it. That pretty boy sidling up to her probably looked just like the man she had left in the street during a Death Eater attack; and why wouldn't he just die and leave her alone?, she would ask herself. So the woman slips out of his eyesight and curls up in a booth with the cheery girls she came with, each of which seem to be grinning through tears.

Perhaps one or all of them saw what the chaste one did or maybe they had seen worse...lived through worse and yet they toast the night and all its soured wonder in a pale reflection of what they remember life was like. What if they had known a victim, been a victim or been the predator? What if all the darkness in their eyes wasn't from war, but from the desire to continue what only loss of order had given them?

But then, Hermione would realize as she concluded her browsing of the area, what if those girls were really just as innocently happy as they appeared and had no ulterior motives aside from getting drunk, getting lucky and living forever? What if it were possible that not everyone had become a monster during Voldemort's reign? How could she be sure? Her own classmates, which she had taken meals with and studied in the same library with, had tried to kill her once.

And she could say truthfully that they were misguided, but even Draco hadn't killed Dumbledore. As misguided as he was and as stalwart as he had been during the school year, he had still not been lost enough to murder. But Vincent Crabbe, he hadn't just been misguided...he had been vicious. True, he probably hadn't known the full extent of the Fiendfyre, but he had cast it with a purpose and that was not to wound.

She had tried to see people with some benefit of the doubt when the war had just ended, but the more she grew in hope for ascension of human values, the greater she was disappointed. Each trial gave her a way to hear the truth, unadulterated, as it was meant to be known. Each confession was a way for her to show herself that people sometimes couldn't change, regardless of nature or the determination of men with gavels. And just maybe people like Voldemort weren't one-in-a-million freaks of nature, but rather an embodiment of what they all were inside; hopelessly driven in the thirst for blood, not the preservation of it.

Titles like hero and villain meant nothing. People were simply people. And violence chose man like the wand chooses the wizard.

She had lived like that until the trials finally ended and some part of her died with the end of her coping mechanism. When Harry came to tell her he had proposed to Ginny, she had felt happiness; happiness waking up deep inside her heart for the first time in a long while. And she had jumped at the chance to be different, to embrace what she had been before...or at least the remnants of it.

Then, after all this time and her failed relationship with Ron, she finds herself in a place where she can accept that love and change exists. That she can feel something other than fear and panic and sorrow. That she can dream without seeing Fred's lifeless face and hearing Molly's screams, without helping raise little Teddy knowing both his mother and father are dead. She can finally look at the world and see within it that one universal truth: humans were made, whether by chance or by divine design, to survive and adapt and remain...through whatever life or death may throw at them.

She could survive and she could move on. Now though, she faced a dilemma that made her delve again into her deep reverie, though without the depressive tinge. Draco had finished his show and within the space of twenty minutes had joined her by the bar.

"You look tired." he mumbled, catching the bartender's eye and sipping from the glass she gave him.

"Thinking is hard work." Hermione sighed and swallowed what was left of her colorful drink.

Draco's bright eyes seemed to catch something off with her, but as he went to speak, she beat him to it. "What do you say we go on a date?"


	30. The Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This date wasn't one of her best, nor perhaps one of her best ideas.

She had on one of her dressier ensembles when she went to check on Ron in St. Mungo's in preparation for the date she had with Draco. Only Harry seemed to notice the silk peasant blouse and the pleated slacks.

"Going somewhere special?" He was helping Ron scratch underneath his cast.

He had been the first person she contacted once she had left Lucius' office. The healers here at Mungo's had been pleased that part of their job had been taken care of quickly. Whenever someone came in under or suffering from the effects of illegal curses, they were bound by the law to report it. With Harry there, it hadn't needed to go further. Hermione supposed that was good. Brighton probably had someone in the Auror Department that would continue his work.

"Out. I think it may help with Brighton." She hugged Ron who seemed to be in better spirits, though he honestly couldn't remember anything after being benched during the game on the fifth. The healers gave a neither-here-nor-there answer on whether or not he would ever remember. The chances were slim.

"Well, whatever it is, be safe. Ron's lost part of his memory because of that man...don't let him take anything from you." Harry's voice was Moody-esque again and she found herself nodding.

"I'll watch out, Harry." She kissed Ron's forehead and took her leave.

She and Draco had decided to pay Diona a visit for their date, seeing as Hermione really did want to see one of the shows. She met him outside the lively club, relishing for once that she could just walk up to the front door and in without having to be one of the Golden Trio. The colorful attendees hurried up to greet them and handed them flute glasses of sparkling water in exchange for their jackets. Draco smiled at her and she felt extremely guilty, but she shoved that aside and smiled back.

A male attendant in a blue and white toga led them through the main area to the restaurant-area dubbed Demeter's Kitchen, and found them a booth table. He left menus in front of them and sped off to help someone else.

The normalcy of having dinner with someone struck her as funny and she giggled as she found a comfortable spot in the cushion. When she looked up, grey orbs gazed at her in interest.

"What's funny?"

She soaked her tongue in water before she spoke. "I've never really done something like this. Either I was too caught up in saving Harry or I was lost in misery, but I never got to go on a date with someone."

"Hm, you are a sad little pity, aren't you?" At first she was wounded, but then he shook his head and squeezed her hand. "Me either. Though I suppose I've had much more experience in the other departments of relationships than you."

"Are you saying I'm undersexed?" The waiter took their order for the appetizer and left again.

""Possibly. You can drown pain in pleasure sometimes. With the way you talk about the war, I'm surprised you never did."

"Who was I going to relieve myself with?" She unfolded her napkin and placed it in her lap, watching her date closely.

"Weasley, Potter before he went all starry-eyed for the Weaslette, Neville Longbottom for all I know." He waved his hand in the air as though to convey the wide expanse of choices.

She laughed. "Ron and I failed because of that emotion. Harry had been starry-eyed for Ginny for a while and Neville is so not my type."

"But I wasn't talking about falling in love. I was talking about sex. They are much different."

"And I supposed you knew that I happen to loop those things together, despite their apparent differences. I wanted someone I could rely on, the physical and the emotional. I had seen enough touch-and-go when everyone thought Voldemort was going to win. There were loads of couples that fell to pieces when their lives weren't in danger. I just wanted what Harry had...someone who was so in love with me that they would fight for me as much as I would fight for them."

"You ask too much of the aftermath. You'd be lucky just to land somewhere safe, let alone with someone like that. I did my best coping with warm bodies around me." He broke her gaze and pushed his menu around.

"You think too little of yourself, Draco." her voice had become soft and she didn't know why.

"Maybe you think too much of yourself. Love isn't limited to kisses and flowers. It isn't locked up in towers that only marriage can scale. And love is anything but eternal. Sometimes love is just that little piece of heaven you get when you reach ecstasy...and that's as close as we'll ever get."

"You don't believe that, Draco. You know love is more than that." She stared at his face until he returned it and pressed her hand to his cheek.

"But what if it's not? What if what I'm feeling is just another delusion my body creates to make me believe I can be happy? I think Maggie would want me to suffer...and not finding love would make so much sense. If I can't find love, I can never marry and then I will have to live with this pain forever." He ordered for them as the waiter came back by and requested a Firewhisky. She marveled briefly that there were muggles across the way that were being served and were completely oblivious.

"Do you love me, Draco?" She was closer to him than she had initially started out as and his breath went from mint to fire with a sip.

"What would you say if I told you I don't know?" He brushed her hair back from her face and kissed her so gently it was almost just a whisper of a thought. "When I kiss you I feel like I'm getting over what I did, when you laugh I feel like laughing and when you touch me I'm anchored back to the world I helped devastate. But I'm afraid that the moment I really believe what I'm feeling, regardless of what I said to my mother, you'll be tainted. Then I'll lose you like I lost everything else. I won't even be me anymore."

"What would you say if I said I love you?" she kissed him and he pulled away.

"I would say you're a fool...but inwardly I would relish in it. And I'd keep you all to myself."

"Then marry me." she whispered and he stopped moving in such a unsettling fashion that she frowned.

"What changed your mind?" Draco sipped from his Firewhisky again and seemed both desiring and uncertain.

"I've thought about it and..."

"I know you went to see my father. Potter told me about the lack of witnesses. Is that what you thought about?" There was pain in his voice and she sat up straight.

"It wasn't like that...you know Brighton can't go free. Your father won't remove the glamour and I can't break it."

"So you'd marry me to put Brighton away? Am I worth that little to you?" he looked more disappointed than angry and her chest throbbed from the weight of his gaze.

"Draco...I didn't want to do this. I want to be with you. And I do care for you. But I wanted to get to know you better, so that when you realized this was the only option you could chose to marry me or let Brighton go."

"You know marrying me would be forever? You would never be able to divorce me and all the children we might have would bear my name. And I would have to swear to never confess. It would do nothing for your mission to put Brighton in Azkaban."

"I was going to try to convince your father to disregard that since I already know. It could be my price for saving his life."

"I..." he slid out of the booth. "I would rather live in this endless cycle of pain than dehumanize either of us by doing what you're thinking of doing. You're worth more than Brighton to me. If I have to let him go to prove that, then I will."

Hermione rushed to stop him, but he was already out of the restaurant by the time she dodged the waiter with their food.


	31. The Article

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean Paige finally writes her piece...and Draco finds himself reading.

He hadn't been able to sleep that night. His bed seemed like a prison and his band mates were still lively from the break. Aurora had changed the strings on Diamond and William had found some new fix. Carmen had thought they should think of new things to do during their shows...just to be fresh and exciting when they played familiar places. None of them had wondered after his date or asked him why he seemed distracted. He liked how they knew not to bother.

Draco didn't really feel like singing or parading around on stage for the crowd. If he let himself feel at this moment, he would be swarmed by the pain. He had always known Maggie would find her way into his life...to ruin it as he ruined hers. It almost felt like justice. He had waited for this, begged for it and she had let him get complacent in the world before reminding him that he didn't deserve the things he clung to.

You burned that bridge, she would say, and now there is no way for you to cross.

"I know." he whispered against the breeze. "I've always known."

The nameless, faceless place where they stayed was longer rather than taller and he put his legs to good use by pacing the entire perimeter. It was dark since it was near midnight and the pool gleamed like a jewel, but he kept walking, hoping perhaps that he could achieve something spectacular. Though he had nary an idea of what.

He wanted to fade into the glamour; to become the aloof persona of Issac that lived to live and sang because the cheers made him feel alive. In that loop, Hermione Granger would be Jean Paige and he wouldn't feel a thing for her. In that loop, there wouldn't be a thing missing from his life or a thing he strove to attain aside from fame. And that pointless goal was a better, more detached dream to reach for than the one he was currently thinking of.

This particular curve of the walkway led back toward the front of the building and he supposed it was about time for him to give slumber another go, at least while his body was willing to override his mind...his heart.

As he curled up in the frigid sheets and buried his head in a pillow he had never slept on before, the feeling of singing...singing to her and knowing she could see him, overcame him and he let his muscles drive his emotion. He punched the bed as hard as he could and punched it harder when it didn't seem to help anything. He didn't want to weep...he didn't want to feel.

When the sun came through the window and forced his eyes to blink, his cheeks were lined with stains and eyelids felt like sandpaper across his eyes. He tried to breath through his nose, but it was clogged to the point where he couldn't even get a whistle of air. His chest hurt, his throat was so dry it bordered on painful, and he had a headache from the strain. And the ironic thing was, he didn't feel any better. Nothing was clearer in his mind and not a single thing was resolved.

The other three were eating breakfast when he finally pulled himself out of whatever stupor he'd fallen into and he slid in beside them. Aurora passed him the eggs and the guys didn't even seem to notice a hair was out of place. But his little Rora kept trying to catch his eyes, so he hurriedly lifted the latest edition of the Daily Prophet and focused his gaze on the news.

The Brother of Corruption  
by Jean Paige

Two things have occurred recently that seem to have no part of the other: Lucius Malfoy is given the Kiss and Auror Winfred Brighton is arrested for charges of theft, bribery, corruption and murder.

For an upstanding man such as Brighton, these charges seem heavy and unfounded, especially when one knows the charitable contributions the Auror has made to the war-scarred Wizarding London. He has aided in rebuilding the crumbling Hogwarts, where most of the battle took place. He has supported leaders that have made transitioning to peace an easy task, creating preventive laws to keep this tragedy from repeating. He has spent time rounding up known Death Eaters and weeding out the more elusive ones...all to make this world safe again.

But while we rejoiced in his humanitarian actions, there was a darker force behind him.

His brother, Alden Brighton, was peddling support with hefty handouts to select officials, all the way up to the former Minister Cornelius Fudge. These pricey gifts were to ensure a variety of things: votes, laws, cover-ups and the most alluring...a position in the Auror department. Though it is at first unclear how two average wage wizards could afford such expenditures.

Around the time when Voldemort was gaining power, there is no record of Winfred Brighton applying for or even inquiring after a career in the magical law enforcement. After the fall of the Dark Lord, he and a few of his close friends are suddenly on record, and eager to take charge. There are letters and official documents that link both brothers to known Death Eaters, who they accepted bribes from and then promptly betrayed, keeping the money for themselves.

One such man was Lucius Malfoy. As a well-known and wealthy pureblood, Malfoy was high on the list of desirable subjects to the power-hungry Voldemort. But as a family man, he was given little choice, as were many of the other followers, in whether or not he would bow before the self-titled Lord. When Voldemort fell, he and quite a few others used what money they had to secure some semblance of freedom.

Most of the money was given to Alden Brighton, the rest to Winfred. With this money they funded both their own livelihood and the political gains they agreed to pursue.

In this cycle of greed and charitable corruption, they spearheaded the Trials, putting away both guilty and innocent men. Winfred captured the people they had accepted money from and Alden assured the evidence stacked up against them irrefutably. In this way, they imprisoned countless men and women, leaving already devastated homes empty. Whether or not the person had had a hand in the violence of one tyrannical and murderous man, they did not investigate.

As a survivor of the war, I knew what was at stake. If you did not serve, you ran. If you did not fight, you hid. Having seen the pressure some of these supposed Death Eaters were under, even Harry Potter testified for them. Yet, both Brighton brothers had made up their minds, and their pockets. No trial would... (Cont'd on page 3)

Draco read a little further, enough to catch the date of Brighton's trial and set the paper aside. She was stubborn, he would give her that. If Brighton's defense found a way to punch holes in the evidence, her credibility would be on the line. He wondered if she was risking it for him or to be rid of Brighton. Aurora tried to speak to him, but he just kissed her head and left, finding his feet pacing the same route of last night but in backwards order.


	32. The Passion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A boy in a cage.

For once in her life, Hermione felt...needy. She wanted to be held or to hold, to caress or be caressed. It sucked feeling so desperate yet having little to no understanding of why or what would ease it. Like being extraordinarily hungry and at a lost as to what you were craving so wantonly. Her flat, covered in discarded parchment, splotches of dried ink and half-empty glasses of Firewhisky, was the exact opposite of what she was used to living in and she couldn't be bothered to care.

Harry had been astonished as had her boss Benson, that she decided to risk so much with that article. She knew if the case went bad, she would have a lot of flack to weather, but she didn't care about that either.

She realized, around about the moment she walked out of Dion's Temple, that she had made a horrible mistake. She had been so blinded by the thought of saving Draco that she had wounded him. And she felt hopelessly tactless about the whole proposition. Hermione couldn't understand how she hadn't seen how foolish it had been when she formulated the plan in her head. But since she knew she had closed that door, she gave up trying to be subtle with the entire Brighton situation. If she was going to work so hard to put him away, she might as well put herself on the line.

Draco deserved that. He deserved to have someone fighting for him, even if he would never speak to her again. So she had run herself ragged over the past week, writing whatever she could to pass the time, researching whatever she had to to get out of her regret. She had probably been at the Ministry records office more than the employees. The Aurors eventually had to bar her because of the case, but by then she had already given Benson her article.

At least she was finally able to please her boss. A shocker...and on the front page no less.

She had tea beside another glass of half-finished Firewhisky and she mixed them together before downing them at once. It both burned and soothed on the way into her stomach and the warmth was desired if partially overpowering. A thought hit her mid-swallow and she knocked over a couple open books in pursuit of a quill.

When she found the thing on the ground, crushed beneath the book she had just displaced, she burst into tears, then almost immediately hit herself in the chest. She was not going to break down like a melodramatic fool. Instead, she picked herself off the floor and went to answer the door she had just heard being knocked on. It was so faint to her ears that she couldn't tell it from thump of her body moving about.

The peephole was a little difficult to navigate with her alcohol-addled clumsiness and she paused long enough to hit herself with a cooling charm and brush her wild hair behind her ears. Blinking quickly so that she didn't appear completely disintegrated and mad, she turned the knob and pasted a bright smile onto her face. It froze, at its highest peak, when she caught the grey eyes of her caller.

"Draco." She didn't know if the feeling in her was fear or joy...it was too confusing to figure out. He was dressed in a fine black suit and his hair was swept back to make him look incredibly handsome. Hermione swallowed, dropped her smile and looked away. "How can I help you?"

He peered past her into her flat and a lighthearted scoff came out of him. "Have you lost your mind?"

She gazed back at the mess and licked her lips. "I...I was working."

"Yes." He stepped forward and she swallowed. "I've seen the article."

"Oh? That's good." her voice was meek and she forced herself to meet his eyes, but only achieved the dip in his neck at his collarbone. For some reason, his shirt wasn't buttoned-up enough to cover it. Her heart was beating so loud and so steady she thought he could write a song to its tempo.

"Who did you write it for?"

She finally looked at him, straight at his face and she wanted to hope there was something other than pain there in those familiar eyes. "A boy in a cage."

He smiled slightly, coyly, and she didn't stop him when he took her face in his hands. Draco was so close to her, so near that she could do what she realized she had been wanting to do for a while. His voice crept into her head as she broke their gaze to stare at his lips.

"He got the message."

"I'm sorry, Draco. I shouldn't have tried to do what I did. It was mindless. You're worth more to me than Brighton, too. Much more." It rushed out of her lips from her guilt and regret. She had wanted to say that since the moment he walked out.

""Oh?" He tilted his head and she saw the same cocky man that had teased her all those times at the clubs they had visited.

"Absolutely." she whispered, stepping a little nearer to him, almost as though he were magnetized.

"That's good."

Draco bridged the distance and suddenly his warm lips were against hers and he was walking her backwards into the flat. Her bare toes brushed against his shoes, her fingers found his hair and somehow the door fell closed.

That desperate needy feeling was back, but now she had something to quench it, some way to fill the space that had been drowning her. His mouth was hot, passionate, and she couldn't believe how much she wanted to deepen the kiss. His tongue was quick, like a snake, and it played against hers as though she were an instrument. Her lungs burned, but she didn't care. Her fingers ripped at his suit, his shirt and she felt the sting of a button as it broke off the cloth. His arms, made up of taut, solid muscle, pulled at her sweatshirt and her skin blazed hotter than fire when he found his way to her breasts.

He was strong and they were falling across the couch as she threw his shirt across the room, finding a better use for her hands exploring the skin she had always seen on display during his concerts. Draco's hair was soft and she had it mussed beyond repair before he could rid her of her bra to replace the fabric with his mouth. Hermione whimpered, curling underneath him as he suckled at her flesh. There was a throbbing in her core that she hadn't felt for a while. The last time she had had any encounter had been with Ron and that hadn't been something to brag about.

It was hot in her little flat as they writhed, fighting for something, fighting for everything. She felt sweat run down her neck and she ran her fingers through his hair. He bit her nipple playfully and she bucked her hips into his, feeling the proof of his arousal against her body. She lost all semblance of patience and shoved him away long enough to free them of their trappings, then brought him back to her arms to kiss him again. He let himself settle against her, but when she angled her hips to allow him to enter her, he paused.

"Wait," he pressed his forehead into her neck. "I...It's..." he shook his head.

Sensing, however briefly, what might give him pause, Hermione forced him to turn, pushed against him until he landed on his back. He looked up at her, boyish somehow, even with all that swagger she had known him for. She leaned down, her lips against his and straddled him. Years ago she wouldn't have even imagined being here was normal, let alone possible, but she felt like she would have been drowning again if he hadn't come along with his glamour and his guilt. Hermione was amazed that a chance encounter could lead to this, but she wouldn't change a thing.

"It's time to let it go, Draco. I've heard your confession...forgive yourself." She held her breath, letting him decide and barely had enough oxygen to cry out when he did.


	33. The Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry drops by and Draco gets invited, if only to spare Hermione the indignity of the singles table.

The first thing to enter her mind was that her bed wasn't empty. Since she had gotten her flat, not a single person had slept with her, and her bed had been some ship to withstand the storms she found herself trapped in on bad days. She was on her side, facing the window and the blazing sun that shone through it, a comforting body molded to her form and maintaining the warmth under the covers.

Hermione had no idea when they had had the presence of mind to move to her bedroom, but she was glad of it. The last time she had slept on her couch she had been unable to move her neck for a few hours.

The security of not being alone was interrupted, however, by a knock on her door. She was both annoyed and startled. Because, for one, she didn't have the smallest of urges to move at this moment and, for two, the sound erupted into the blissful silence of this morning like a sonic boom. She moved her head gently down and scooted slowly out of the embrace that was too good to leave. She sat up with the resigned thought that she wasn't ever going to be able to find that spot again. Draco's arm had fallen lightly to the bed and she denied herself the treat of feeling it again.

Hermione touched the floor too quickly and hissed, feeling the wood suck her heat into its fibers without a hint of remorse, sending a shiver of chill up her spine and into her teeth. Tentatively, she brought herself to her feet, both stretching and gazing backwards to see if her play at stealth had been successful.

She immediately regretted the glance because the vision of a tousled-haired angel was nearly enough to draw her back beneath the covers and leave the disturbance to rot at her door. She had to avert her eyes before the sleeping face corrupted her completely. When in the world had he gotten so irresistible? Shaking her head, Hermione worked her way across her flat to the door and was seconds away from opening it before she realized she was completely naked. The knocking started again as she slid into a robe.

"I'm coming!" she called out softly, wanting desperately to not wake Draco.

Seeing Harry on the other side was starting to seem like an omen of bad news, but she smiled regardless. He was wearing his Auror uniform and she wondered if it was official business.

"Hermione, good morning." she stepped to the side to let him in and gave the wrecked place a frown, almost blaming it for being inhospitable. Her friend sidestepped the dried puddle of an upturned Firewhisky, as if nothing was amiss, and took a seat on the couch. She had to fight a blush when she realized what she had done on that couch last night.

"Is it bad news?" The door clicked lightly as she shut it.

"No, thank Merlin. Your article had the opposite effect than I thought it would. I've had thirteen people step forward." He pulled out a crumpled piece of parchment with names on it. She read through it and tried to connect it to the ones she had used as basis for her article.

"Step forward...?" she met his eyes and paused with every bit of hope in her body.

"With testimonies of the deeds you wrote of in your little exposé. The ones we have sync up with the evidence we both found and they have memories to prove it. If I can get the judge to listen to what I have to say, I should have Brighton on trial by tomorrow."

"Wonderful!" she breathed, sitting across from him.

"It looks like we might finally have a break here. Oh," he said quickly. "Ginny wanted to know if you were going to have a date to the wedding."

"Um...I..."

"It's just that she and Molly are reorganizing the seating chart and she didn't want to put you next to a group of bachelors Ron is bringing, but Molly wants that to be your table, specifically." He gave her a look she interpreted as throwing up his hands in the matter.

"Well, I guess..."

"Hermione?" Her heart stopped at the sleepy voice and she thanked Draco's mind for deeming pants appropriate. Harry flicked his eyes back and his wand was in his hand. When he saw the bare-chested intruder, he barely held back a laugh.

"I suppose I can tell Ginny to seat you next to Neville and Luna, eh?"

She let her head fall to her chest and she covered her face with her hands. After having a serious conversation with her palms, Hermione looked up at her company.

"Are you willing to attend a Gryffindor wedding, and Harry's, of all people?" she watched the half-asleep Draco yawn and lean against the couch lazily. He let his eyes roam over them both, then he reached out a hand and scuffed Harry's hair.

"Why not? Once Brighton's put away, I'll convince my father to remove the glamour, then I'll get to show you off to everyone you know."

"Ron's not going to take the idea of you two together, but Molly might just be unbearable."

"In a good or a bad way?" Draco asked, scooping the bottle of Firewhisky off the floor by the couch and sniffing the liquid.

"It's a wedding. Her daughter's wedding. Her only daughter's wedding. I happen to be friends with both parties and an adopted daughter as Harry is an adopted son. You'll be asked if you're going to ask me to be your wife at least forty times before the reception." Hermione stood and replaced the Firewhisky with pumpkin juice. Draco swigged it without a second thought.

"Do I have to answer?" he inquired, looking to Harry.

"I didn't for four years. Then I woke up one day and realized I couldn't live another day without her. Molly has good intentions, but it all comes down to you." he drank the glass she gave him and headed for the door. "I'll tell Ginny you have a plus one."

Once Harry had left, Hermione shook her head. Draco pulled her out of her seat and lifted her off the floor. She sighed as he carried her back to the bedroom. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to go back to sleep. I was having a really good dream before he came over. Maybe I can jump back in it if I try hard enough."

"What were you dreaming about?"

Draco found a way to place her in the bed and get in beside her without touching anything but the rug. He was warmer than she was so she curled into him.

"Something about a stage covered in blue flowers. I was singing one of my songs." He already was drifting off and she couldn't help but feel like she was too.

"I'd like to hear it."

"Maybe later." he mumbled but she was already asleep.


	34. The Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco decides to help Hermione celebrate her birthday.

The weeks left in August and the beginnings of September passed so quickly Hermione had trouble believing it was her birthday. Draco woke her up in such an unexpected way, she wasn't sure she was still on earth when she finally opened her eyes. Her legs shook with aftershocks and he had to pry her fingers from his hair to raise his head up from her center. There was a mischievous light in his eyes as he licked his lips.

"I should write a song about the way you roll your hips..." he chuckled deeply and she saw his face vanish again.

She gasped at the warm, curling muscle that pulled at her sensitive bundle of nerves and bucked against him. He was sucking in her essence and leaving her writhing for more of the warmth. Her legs couldn't decide whether to bend or straighten and Draco pressed her knees completely apart to quell her indecision. Now that he had her laid bare, he attacked her flesh like a monster and she rose so quickly to her own heights she couldn't see anything. He growled as she screeched out another release to his lips. Hermione had to struggle against her own languidness to crawl away before he stole her brain from pure pleasure.

"Leaving so soon?" his hand wandered from her knee to her hip and she barely had a chance to block him before he snuck his hand back to her throbbing core.

"D-draco!" she whimpered, holding her hand over his. "Stop it."

He drew up behind her and nuzzled her neck. "And here I was trying to be a gentleman and wish you a happy birthday..." he pouted with fast blinking eyes. She supposed he was going for the innocent look. His free hand cupped her breast and he pushed her legs apart with his knee once more. She wanted to kiss him, but she felt like that would be too much like allowing him to win.

"Everyone usually gives me a card and a present." she was short of breath...or she was panting, she wasn't sure.

"I'm not everyone." he said, pressing his lips against her pulse as he played a little tune on her nerves. She felt, vaguely, that he was quoting her words back to her. "Now, lay still like a good birthday girl and let me finish wishing you happiness."

He slid into her so smoothly she could do nothing by moan.

By noon, she guessed, as the sun was close to the center of the sky, she managed to pull herself out of bed and into what normal people called clothes. She had to remind Draco, after giving in a handful of times to his charms, that the Weasleys would be expecting her soon. He gave her another reason to stay and she had to summon another round of strength just to redress herself.

"I can't layabout all day. They've went out of their way to set up a party for me, during wedding preparations. I have to at least show up."

"Perhaps they should have set the wedding for a later date? Out of consideration for your birth and all." He hadn't chosen to dress with her and he lounged on her bed with one knee bent. Hermione had the feeling he was leaning towards her on purpose and had to bite her lip not to smile because it was working.

"They had the wedding planned out so they wouldn't spend themselves broke." She tied her hair back into a knot and sat down on the bed to put on her shoes. Draco preceded to undo her hair and the top three buttons of her shirt before she could finish lacing her shoes. She gripped his manhood and worked him until he fell back against the pillows with a gasping whimper. With his eyes closed and his muscles slack, she was able to move away. When he realized she had duped him, he pulled himself to his knees on the bed. She hadn't meant for him to go wild, as his eyes were shouting out at her.

"Couldn't Potter just pay?" It surprised her that he could still hold the conversation.

"Molly wouldn't let him and neither would Arthur. He's not some piggy bank, Draco." She was finally ready, jewelry and all.

"I would have paid for it all and the honeymoon and whatever you asked of me afterwards." He was somehow behind her and he wrapped his arms around her middle, pulling her into him.

"Well, you've never been without money, Draco. There is pride in knowing you can provide something for the only bride in the family. Imagine you had only an eighth of what you have now and your daughter was getting married. Wouldn't you scrape together every bit of money you had to make it the best day of her life...just because you finally could?"

"Even if I only had an eighth, I'd have enough to send them to three different countries for two weeks a piece and have enough left over to buy them a house." He kissed her neck and she sighed.

"That's not the point, Draco. It's about being invested in a very special day in your child's life, whether or not you have the funds to make most of it happen."

He looked to the ground and she pressed a hand to his cheek. "I still think they could have made a concession for your birthday."

She grinned. "You've made this the best birthday yet and the day isn't even over. I'm thankful they thought of me at all."

Draco kissed her so powerfully she stumbled. "When I make you mine, you won't ever feel like that again. You shouldn't have to be thankful because they had the grace to think of you. You should be all they think about."

"They have lives outside of me, Draco."

He growled again, but it was possessive. "I don't."

Hermione couldn't say anything for a moment. "Of course you do." she whispered.

"No. I have the times I'm with you and the times I'm singing. That's all I have."

"You've got a family and friends."

"I have you. You are my life."

"Draco..." she said, but he had already found a way to pull her back to the bed and she knew immediately that she was going to be very, very late for her own birthday party.


	35. The Verdict

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brighton's trial is done and the verdict is announced.

The trial of Winfred Brighton had gone on with barely a whisper into his ear, but he had been preoccupied with a certain wily temptress. When he realized Potter had cancelled Hermione's subscription to the Daily Prophet and bribed her boss Benson with lifelong tickets to the Quidditch World Cup, he understood why the news had seemed a little silent. He contented himself with the fact that the beautiful creature beside him had no plans to leave and was quite vocal when he pressed the right buttons.

But it hadn't all been sexual encounters that they had had. Aside from being naked at the time, they had had a wonderful day getting to know as much as they could about each other.

He knew now about her parents, the dentists, and the traditions they had, such as the letters they had sent her every week at Hogwarts, and the extent of love she exhibited by hiding her parents away so thoroughly. He knew more about the escapades of their school years than he had ever thought possible and even though over half of them included Potter and Weasley, nothing lit up her face more than being able to share all these secrets with him.

His secrets weren't nearly so laugh-inducing to hear, but he told them all the same. And nothing felt better after a bad memory than pressing his face against her chest and hearing her heartbeat and having the assurance that she wasn't running or judging...that she understood.

He had made love to her so many times he had lost count, yet each time was as memorable as the last and he hated the thought of her moving on from him.

That morning she was sitting at the island in her kitchen, dividing a bit of egg between their two plates. She was wearing a blue dress, not exactly periwinkle and her bare feet stretched out on her toes made her calves defined. He felt sick to his stomach, so he stepped behind her and curled himself as closely as he could to her back.

"Good morning." she whispered with a smile and he squeezed tighter.

"Could you turn on the radio?"

"What for?" Her hair tickled his nose, but it was such a familiar feeling that he simply closed his eyes to it.

"Just...please."

"Okay." He released her and she made her way to the radio on the dining room window sill, turning the knob manually. After spending a month in her presence, he was used to her muggle habits. They had this urge to touch everything.

"The trial of esteemed-or once esteemed-Auror Winfred Brighton has finally come to an end. There was quite the wait, as the deliberation carried over into the night and eventually postponed until this very morning." The man's voice blared from the speaker and he coughed lightly as he listened to a series of charges against the accused.

Hermione distracted him by filling a glass with cold milk and handing him his plate. The frigid liquid helped soothe his roiling stomach. So did the food on the plate. He had found out the third day of his stay that she could fry an egg like no one else. Her culinary abilities, she told him, had only developed after classes which were driven by the groans and twisted faces she had gotten out on the run. She hated not being good at things and had found a magical cooking class as well as a muggle one. He assured her that it paid off.

"The verdict is in...the defense is not looking pleased. It looks as though all thirteen witnesses worked for the prosecution...and, yes, Winfred Brighton has been found guilty!" The lively reporter's voice was drowned out by sound of loud chatter in the background.

Draco scooped the last of his food into his mouth and stood. His feet carried him around the island to the humming woman by the sink and he wrapped himself around her again. She leaned back into his embrace and sighed.

"You're clingy." she whispered.

"Is that a problem?"

"Not at all."

He kissed her neck. "I have to go do some things...I should be back in a few hours at most."

"Are you going to your father?" She turned in his arms and made it impossible for him to focus by gazing straight into his eyes.

"Yes." He hemmed in his urge to tell the truth.

"All right." Hermione stretched up and kissed him sweetly, almost as if he were a fragile piece of glass. "Be safe."

He bowed his head in answer and left, hurrying to escape before he was trapped in the urge to never leave.

His first stop was Malfoy Manor. He refused to make his first public appearance as Draco Malfoy in four years dressed in his 'functional' robes, at least that was his excuse. Instead, he wore his best muggle suit, jet black and pressed, with silver cuffs and a perfectly tied tie. His hair was long enough to bind behind his head with a ribbon and he had to ask his mother to do the honors as he had only ever seen his father do it in passing.

She looked on the verge of tears as he turned around. "You look so much like him."

He kissed her head and left, thinking of the place Hermione had taken him to days ago. He hadn't wanted to draw attention to his father prematurely, so he denied himself the treat of actually seeing his father, but today he was going forward at a brisk pace for just that purpose.

There was a hole in the nameplate, which had been there when they had stood a few meters back so he could have an idea of where the place was. He reached up to caress the name Narcissus Wileaux, but had to draw his hand back to his side when a thin man pulled open the door with a smile on his face. Draco averted his eyes as he returned a stranger's smile and entered the building.

It was quaint and spartan, which was so unlike his father he congratulated the man's intelligence. The woman at the desk gave him a cursory glance before pulling out a piece of parchment for him to fill out. He shook his head and waved her offering away.

"Is he free?"

The woman nodded. "But Mister Wileaux will need a form..."

He waved his hand again. "He expects me or at the very least he will welcome me. Thank you."

The office door opened silently and he closed it with a deliberate click. A rustle of paper greeted his action and he heard a chuckle.

"Someone is overly eager." Draco turned and saw his father...or what he supposed had to be his father. Black hair, cut short and curled, topped the regal face he only just recognized. The eyes though, were something he knew well.

"Father. Brighton has been found..."

"Guilty." Lucius signed a document and flicked his index finger, sending it into a folder that had popped out of a drawer long enough to gobble it up. "Have you found yourself a wife?"

The tick that started in his jaw had little to do with anger, it was disappointment.

"I have."

"Why is she not here? I know you did not come just to see me...you never were that type."

"I was whatever you wanted me to be, father...whether or not it was really me you were seeing." Draco remained standing, since sitting implied prolonged conversation. "Remove the glamour."

"That I cannot do. There were rules to this, my son, that I will not break."

"I'm not asking you to change your mind...I'm asking you to be my father. I have found a woman I want to spend the rest of my life with, I have found happiness after years of loneliness and torment, I have been able to breath for the first time since I got the Mark." He didn't realize he was crying or pleading, he simply leaned against the chair in front of him for support. "I don't want to lose her...and I don't want to have to tell her a lie when I hit the boundaries of a Vow I made to you. You would never have accepted this if you were me and she was mother. You would have fought until you had her because you loved her. Wouldn't you?"

His father lowered his eyes. "I thought I made it clear to both of you."

"You did." Draco stepped forward. "She even tried to get me to understand that it was the only way, but I refuse to let you do this. I refuse to let your fear rule us like Voldmort did."

"Don't say his name." Lucius' eyes were ablaze and his hand cradled his left wrist.

"Does it hurt, father? I can barely tell anymore." Draco lifted his sleeve and pressed his fingers against the blackened scar, for that was what it was.

"Put your sleeve down."

"Why? Is someone going to murder me for showing it? I've been showing everyone for years, singing about it even. You knew and you never stopped me. Voldemort is dead, father. Only this remains of him. Brighton has been found guilty, he's been given life in Azkaban...just short of the Kiss. Why can't you let me go?"

"I won't let you marry a mudblood...I cherish the blood, but I will not mix it."

Draco smirked, running his tongue along his teeth. Somehow he had known. "What if I told you I already married her?"

All color drained from his father's face. The man stood and all his flying files crashed to the ground. "You haven't. I would have known."

"Not if I secretly married her...yesterday." He was so determined he managed to tell the lie properly.

"If what you say is true, you will never have a Malfoy heir."

"Your problem not mine. Perhaps I will take the name Granger and send them to dentist school or muggle university. Or they could be lawyers like that dear old granddad they never got meet."

"You wouldn't."

"I would. I will do what it takes to have her be my wife, glamour or no, name or no. Even if Draco Malfoy never sees the light of day again, Issac Turin will have the best life he can ever have...and the best muggleborn wife any man has ever had. Maybe I'll write a song about you."

"I will never forgive you, Draco. Never." Lucius eyes were conflicted.

"Hate me then, but let me have what I love love me as me, not Issac Turin." Draco stepped to his father's side and pressed a hand to the man's shoulder. "Father, please."

"I could not live and hate you simultaneously, son."

"I could not hate you either, father."

"I get to name the first boy."

Draco smiled past his misty eyes. "Whatever you want."


	36. The Cell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco says goodbye to Brighton properly.

He had gone to Azkaban after seeing his father and met Potter on the way. Lucky for him, he supposed.

"Draco...you're..." The Boy-Who-Lived laughed lightly and patted his arm. "You're finally the man I remember. You look good."

For some reason, the humor of the compliment hit him and he chuckled. "I always knew you had feelings for me, Potter."

"No! Don't tell Ginny, please!" The quiet faux-desperation sent them both into chuckles and Draco had to shake himself back to his normal self before he did something stupid.

"I need to speak to Brighton."

"Of course. You've got about ten minutes before the guards come by again...this will be the last law I let you break." There was both a humor and a steel in the emerald eyes across from him and he nodded.

"You have my thanks."

"See you at the wedding, eh?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world."

He left the all too comfortable conversation for the cell Potter singled out to him up the many stairs. Down the claustrophobic halls of slick stone dusted by years of sea salt air and heavy boots, the cells appeared on the higher levels, away from the main floor and the guards' rest areas. Men and women alike were behind the bars, cringing and whimpering, a few moaning in despair. It was cold and harrowing to be in this place and he walked faster, feeling his own happiness fading as the seconds ticked by.

The guards were down the same level of Brighton's cell, but tending to both a newcomer and a dead inmate. It seems she found a way to carve a wound deep enough in herself to bleed out and the mess was quite the problem. Thankfully, the cell they were cleaning and the cell that was about to be occupied were the same one and the stairs they required to retrieve things was only a few steps away from it. Draco, however, was near a dead end, by a separate set of stairs. He stepped in front of the bars and gazed inward at the shabby mess of a hole, watching Brighton's turned back.

"Does it feel like home?" he asked gently, hardly able to keep a smirk from his lips.

The man, clothed in prisoner garb and shivering both from anger and cold, spun to see his guest. "You got it removed...you married?"

"No. I had a wonderful man by the name of Mister Wileaux do the honors of undoing the glamor. It appeared I did enough by getting you in here."

"Lucius." Winfred growled, pulling at his chains. "It was too easy. He lives...I knew he did...or I should have known."

"Yes, you should have."

"But it makes no matter. I still have people out there and they will come to appeal the verdict. My brother will not let me rot here...not after all I've done for him. You will face me again, boy, on more even terms." There was a glimmer of hatred and fear mingled in those muddled brown eyes across from him and Draco smiled.

"Have you gone so far as to rest all your freedom on one source? A very unwise thing to do."

"Alden will come. He only has to get the funds together. Besides, your father will not live forever. He has enemies." Draco saw the triumphant air in the man's shoulders and the victory he supposed he still had.

"You wouldn't be thinking of Ronald Weasley, would you? A petty family with grudges against some man they don't even know? He is glamored as well as I was. His death would not have aided your case or taken the fire from your misdeeds. Only killing Lucius Malfoy would. What if I had been the one to cast his glamor? Your entire ploy would have been for naught."

"You think that's all the plans I have? You think you've won that easily?" His voice raised and he lost the battle with his chains as he yanked against them and stumbled back.

"Yes." Draco crossed his arms calmly, eyeing the man with all the venom he could muster. "I think you've run out of options, Winfred. Azkaban was never meant to factor in your plans, at least not for you...or your family. But you didn't think of the repercussions when you were hauling innocent families away. It was nothing but your vindictive little game of theft and imprisonment, corralling those too broken to escape into life sentences they did not deserve. And you ran the gambit as long as you could, but all crimes catch up with us in the end."

"They do." Brighton muttered, grinning like a loon. "Maggie will always catch up to you. Her blood will never leave your skin and when she smiles in your head your heart will break."

Draco shook his head, glancing to the stone floor for a moment. "Maggie doesn't haunt me anymore...I have something else to dream about now. She let me go of my guilt, helped me to heal from it. I'm still healing, but I know a secret that you will never stop feeling."

Brighton had yanked against his bonds again and the clanking alerted the guards down the hall. The prisoner was finally able to be put in the cell and the cleaning was wrapping up. A few on duty murmured about rounds and Draco watched them silently as the former Auror spat on the ground.

"What have you got to say then? Before the guards come to put you in a cell beside me."

"You will never get free, Winfred." He began, stepping as close to the bars as they would allow. "No one is coming for you. Alden won't be coming for you. He's already here, in these walls, in this place. Maybe if you listen hard enough the Dementor that sucked his soul from his body will sweep by and you'll hear in the agony of your own torment the truth. He'll be screaming to you: 'But, brother, couldn't you tell I'm not Lucius? Couldn't you see me behind the glamor?'"

Brighton's mouth fell and his eyebrows knit together, his eyes unfocused and he slipped backwards to the floor. He began to mutter something inaudible and Draco could feel the weight of the Dementors as they descended to the weak victim for their feast.

"It's quite poetic and sad, actually. You killed your own brother unknowingly...Shakespeare would be proud."

A scream so loud and so feral ripped into the silence and the guards rushed forward. The last Draco saw of the man named Winfred Brighton was his pale white face as three Dementors coiled around him.


	37. The Wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry ties the knot with Ginny and Draco decides to sing a last song.

This day felt different, he surmised as he fixed his tie and squinted at his reflection. The air was lighter and the light didn't strike his eyes so hard. If he turned his head just a little to the right, he could glimpse the reason, fussing over her beautiful hair and growling at herself for having waited until just this moment to run a comb through her curls. Sensing a disaster on the horizon, since she was both Maid of Honor and best friends with the groom and they had less than an hour before they needed to be in their places, he rushed over.

"Stop tugging so hard." he halted the progress of her frantic fingers and removed the comb from the equation. Instead, he picked up her brush and ran softly through the strands, working from one side of her head to the other and back until it was coiled and smooth. She was smiling softly at him and returned it, they stayed that way for a few minutes and then she blinked suddenly and they were off again.

Her dress, a deep royal blue, swept the floor and her short heels clicked as she rushed them both out the front door.

The Burrow hadn't been a place he had ever visited, he hadn't had a reason to, and he kept his tongue about the ramshackle home. All of his blood scoffed at the hovel, but hanging on his arm was joy brought about just by the sight. Draco tried to see what she was seeing, to find the welcoming adoration that poured out of her eyes. It was terribly difficult. What met his gaze was bits of broken parts and very strong magic. If it had been a muggle abode, he would have feared it was going to collapse at his exhale.

Across the wide lawn, held up by silver poles, were open canopies, connected and yet without visual obstacles to the rather quaint view of the blooming garden. Draco focused on the worked earth, seeing there the beauty the house had lacked to his jaded pureblood eyes. Even a society brat like himself could see the effort and care a garden took to bring to fruition. He had watched the elves at work when he was just a child and though back then it had been sport to cast rocks at the creatures to hear them squeak, he had always loved the view from his bedroom window.

Hermione had become some sort of attraction to the people about the canopies and he was ripped from her presence by the sheer amount of callers that came upon her. The raised voices and laughter seemed to be segregating him though he tried to find a place within it. He spoke to some Aunt of the Weasleys and she had a habit of caressing his head while she doted over her grandchildren and the stories she had to tell. He listened, calm, until the ceremony was called into action.

Sitting back, far from the wrinkled, clingy hands that had probably left an awful scent in his hair, he watched his former nemesis say his vows and happily kiss his blushing bride. Something about it gave him hope and he clapped along with the others. His date was preoccupied with her friends and pseudo-family, hugging and dancing, even singing off-key with the warbling of the singer on stage. It wasn't anyone he knew, but she sounded close enough to Celestia Warbeck that it was pleasant to hear.

Tired of waiting out the crowds, Draco polished off his drink and made his way across the large space to his lovely company. She spun out of some Auror's arms and into his as she laughed in her excitement. Hermione's cheeks were rosy, her face was alight with happiness and she gripped him tightly.

"I'm surprised Ron hasn't mugged you yet." Her voice was lively, uplifting.

"I haven't even seen him." He hadn't seen anyone but her.

"Well, that's probably for the best. Thanks for coming with me."

"I wouldn't have left you at that table." Behind them, jostling each other wildly, eight single males joked and shouted.

"I'm glad."

The song wound down and they slowed, but a thought hit him and he kissed her gently. "I want to make a scene."

Hermione's face scrunched as she tried to figure out what he was on about. Draco didn't give her a chance to let her ceaselessly active mind grasp his meaning, but headed for the stage. It wasn't one he was used to, but it had a couple steps on the sloping lawn and a microphone. He kindly took the mic from the woman on the stage and cleared his throat.

"If I could have a moment?" The band behind him stopped and he eyed the crowd. To his astonishment, both his mother and glamour-less father were near Potter and his new wife. Hermione caught his glance and shrugged with a coy grin. He had his own secret, but he had a few words to say first.

"I know I would be the last person anyone would expect to say this, but I am happy for you, Pott...Harry." He sighed. "The article Hermione wrote about me reflected only a little of what all of us went through and you would know that very well. I'm happy you found peace after all that happened. I'm happy that the evil and destruction Voldemort brought did not morph you into his successor. I've finally figured out that you are a good man, and if Hermione's stories are true, you've married a strong, beautiful and brave woman. From the bottom of my heart, I hope you two have each other, until the end, for better or worse."

Potter nodded to him and his little wife was teary-eyed. He absorbed the cheers and waited until they ceased to continue.

"Now that I've gotten that out...Harry, you once said to me that one day you woke up and realized you couldn't live another day without her. In light of this wisdom, I would like to do one more thing. Carmen, Aurora, Billy." His bandmates came out of the crowd and found spots up on the stage.

The last time he had been nervous on stage, he had been getting ready for their first show. Now the jittery uncertainty was for another first. He felt almost shy, but the moment his fingers looped securely around the mic, he found his anchor. Carmen began with a quick trilling intro, and Draco centered himself to his target.

"There is something to be said about falling without plotting the course. There is something to be said for riding the race without a good horse. And you look offended by my terminology, pouting and frowning so sweetly at me." Hermione's face mimicked the words and he grinned.

"Hey, why don't you marry me? We could live our lives out in agony. I'd get you a house with a picket fence, you'd shake your head, say I don't make sense. And I'd make you the happiest woman on the earth, and I'd make you give me more than I deserve. Hey, why don't you marry me? Hey, why don't you marry me?"

He sang the entire song, putting everything he could into it. When the last note played and he had a moment of silence to catch his breath, he stared at Hermione's amber eyes until he saw nothing else again.

"So what do you say? A snake and a lioness?" He licked his lips, fearful she would say no but petrified of the prospect of having that bit of heaven as his own. Part of him didn't want to break another beautiful thing. Her gaze never left his and she seemed almost sad.

"That's a horrid song, Draco." He wasn't sure whether to smile or admit utter defeat. "Who did you write it for?"

His lips twitched upwards in a smile. "A girl in a cage."

"She got the message."

"Is that a yes?" He felt the weight of every eye and he tried to remain his smug stage persona, but failed miserably. Nervously, he brushed his hair back behind his ears. His mother was clinging to his father, eyes wide in anticipation. Potter was smiling at Hermione with encouragement, even though she hadn't done more than blink.

"I don't know." She was advancing to the stage and the people moved out of her way. "Will I ever live it down if I said 'yes' outright?"

"Never." His face protested against his beaming smile, but he ignored it.

"Well, at least I'll know why you won't stop smirking." She was in front of him and he felt his heart beating quicker. He dug in his pocket for the last of his trips the day of the verdict and produced a small box. The sight brought tears to her eyes. "Aren't you supposed to kneel?" Her voice broke and she chuckled.

"Oh, yes. Of course, my princess." he took a knee and she held out her hand. He gently slid the ring onto her finger with an almost overwhelming wave of emotion destabilizing his composure. When he tore his eyes away from her newly adorned hand, he saw she was crying in earnest.

"I love you." he whispered, standing to his full height to wipe the tears from her cheeks.

"And I love you."

He wasn't sure if it was Molly Weasley or his own mother who sobbed out loud as they kissed.


	38. The Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An end to all things, and this one happy.

Being pregnant was both a blessing and a curse.

The Malfoys, meaning Lucius and Narcissa, had refused to allow her to go to any muggle doctor and instead hired a well-known pureblood Mediwitch. Cold and snide, the woman was a godsend when contractions fell on her so powerfully her vision faltered. It caught her breath in a vice as much as she was told to breathe and the sensation of her body morphing itself to a thing capable of birth drove tears into her eyes.

Only women were allowed in the room with her and Narcissa was cooing in her ear as Ginny slipped inside to the sound of Harry's voice. Hermione's new godson, James Sirius, had been born about two months ago, healthy with pudgy little cheeks. His hair was as black as his father's, but he had glowing brown eyes. The still plump Ginny came over and kissed Hermione on the forehead, brushing her hair from her sweaty skin. She shifted in her seat as she tried to find enough time to breath properly.

"Draco's losing it. He wants to be here for you."

"We broke tradition to have Hermione join our bloodline and this child is another kick in the shin for our ancestors, but this baby will be born in pureblood fashion." Narcissa was pacing as Hermione stood to withstand another contraction. As much as the society rules were weighing on her view of her first child's birth, Hermione did welcome Narcissa's sharp fingers on her back. The entire affair was much easier with all these attendants.

"It's fine. He can wait." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The mediwitch with a pinched face swept over and waved her wand across the curve of Hermione's belly. A blue sheen flashed quickly and the woman nodded.

"She should lay down. She'll have to push soon."

The bed in this room was technically Narcissa's spare one, in a separate room in the expansive manor she and her husband owned. Draco had been born in this bed. It seemed a proper place to have his child. The softness and firmness of the bed cradled her and she thanked magic once more as the pillows grew plush and thick until she was comfortable. Or as comfortable as she could get in this situation.

She was ready for this, she had planned and plotted and searched herself clean and she had decided she was actually ready to do this. None of them but the Mediwitch knew the gender and Hermione wanted it to stay that way. Draco and Lucius had agreed on Scorpius Hyperion for a boy and she just thought that was silly. She wanted to name the boy Hugo, after her grandfather, but that was shot down almost immediately. It was finally revealed that Draco had taken the liberty of more or less promising the right to name the first boy to Lucius. The underhandedness of the act made her mad, but she gave her father-in-law a pass since he had looked so happy at the prospect of a boy.

Pureblood notions of what was important, she shook her head.

A rush, a feeling beyond her own mind, came over her and she felt the urge to push. The Mediwitch guided her through the process and the pain with quick orders and she clung to the method of the thing as much as the emotion. She wished her mother was here. She wished her father was here, mingling with all the important men in her life as they joked to release the tension and fear. She wondered if the pain would linger after all was said and done or if the effort of bringing life would ease once the baby cried out for the first time. Her mind ran from the color of the walls in the baby's room to the idea of seeing the child off to Hogwarts. The only time her mind was clear was the moment she felt the baby emerging out of her smoothly with a breathless last push.

Compared to the actual birthing, the pain was nonexistent. She laid her head back against the pillows and started to drift from consciousness, but she couldn't fathom falling asleep without seeing her baby's face, counting the fingers and toes like Ginny had. With a burst, however small, of energy, Hermione brought herself up slightly higher and reached for the bundled red siren Narcissa was rocking and Ginny was crying over. After a moment, she was holding her child, her lovely, wrinkled baby.

"She's beautiful, 'Mione." Ginny was wiping her eyes on her sleeve and Narcissa took a seat on the bed beside her.

"What will you name her, my dear?" Tears were spilling over Narcissa's cheeks and she met Hermione's eyes seriously.

"I want to name her Rose." The crimson fabric wrapped around the girl matched perfectly.

"May I add a name?" There was uncertainty in the woman's voice and she fiddled with a handkerchief in her lap.

"Not anything like Scorpius Hyperion, right?" Ginny had a smile on her face.

"No. Nothing like that." Narcissa brushed the downy soft blond hair over and over with her fingers. "I would like to call her Bella Rose."

"Bella?" Hermione did not know why Ginny seemed to be her voice, but she was willing to be silent as she thought.

"My...my sister was...horrible, I know. But...she wasn't always as you saw her. When we were little, she was loving and witty. You would have liked her." Narcissa looked to Hermione again. "I loved her even though I knew she was falling apart. Maybe my granddaughter can make the name beautiful again. Something for me to remember fondly of my sister."

"She tortured people." Ginny shook her head. "I wouldn't want to name a child after that."

"Just because everyone you know is a saint doesn't mean those that I know are any less deserving."

Hermione sighed. "I think Bella Rose is perfect, Narcissa."

Ginny frowned, but sighed as well. "Alright."

The Mediwitch opened the French doors as soon as Hermione was presentable and four men charged in. Lucius and Draco were neck-and-neck to reach the bed and Harry and Ron lingered back. Ginny took the sleeping James from her husband and began to talk to her brother. Draco looked hesitant to peek, but when he did he didn't look away.

"A girl?" he whispered and replaced his mother at the bed beside her. Hermione lifted their baby girl and settled her in his arms gently. He laughed and scooted closer so he could lean against the headboard and pillows. "What have you named her?"

"Bella Rose."

"Bella?" He glanced from her to his mother and back. "Are you alright with this?"

"If I don't forgive now, I never will. Bellatrix is gone and I should move on with my life." She kissed him. "I have moved on."

Everyone had a moment to cradle and laugh and she was starting to drift again leaning on Draco's chest. At some point, James woke up and Harry brought Bella Rose near him. The chubby little boy reached out and touched her sleeping face with wide brown eyes. He giggled when she shifted.

"Watch your boy, Harry. That's my girl he's blushing over."

Hermione patted her husband in answer and he chuckled. The sound of his laughter made her close her eyes out of relaxation and she fell asleep to the cacophony of everyone's voices. Hearing Ron and Lucius having a back-and-forth over him being godfather was so odd she smiled as she succumbed to exhaustion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't thank you enough for reading. This is the most fulfilling part of my life and I relish every second of it. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.


End file.
